RAVELS  AND  ROlligL, 

lNTHENE®iilT 


■WlLIJAM  ivnttiiR 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


i.. 


Travels  and   Politics 

in  the  Near  East 


Travels  and  Politics 


i\ 


THE     NEAR     EAST 


Bv 


William   Miller 


TVITH  MAP   ANT>   ILLUSTRATIONS 


wpijsj'rwps.; 


NEW    YORK 

FREDERICK  A.    STOKES   COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 


cs^\^- 


V 
375 


TO 

MY    WIFE, 

THRICE    !\IY    COMPANION    ON 
THE    BALKAN 


"  Ei  06  iiTT  ivoc;  (ip\oiTo,  H)  (pi}ovioi  Kara  rwiVo,  afxa\(n> 
T  av  £('»/,  (vai  TToAAw  Kpariaroi'  ttiivtcov  tdvihj}'^  Kara  yvwiU}]V 
Ti)v  tjiu)}'.      'AAAa  yctp  TOVTO  aTTOfiuv  (T(pi  Kd)  OjUt'/ Y'^(i'O)'  /hi)  KOTe 

n>  7H'(jr«t-" — Herodotus,  v.  3. 


3027941 


PREFACE 

This  book  is  the  result  of  four  visits  to  the  Balkan 
Peninsula  in  the  years  1894,  1896,  1897,  and  1898, 
and  of  a  long  study  of  the  Eastern  question. 
While  I  can  honestly  say  that  I  have  acquainted 
myself  with  all  the  principal  works  which  have 
appeared  on  the  Near  East  during  the  last  ten 
years,  I  have  in  all  cases  relied  upon  my  own 
personal  observations  and  inquiries,  conducted 
upon  the  spot,  for  the  statements  made  in  the 
following  pages.  Most  persons  who  have  written 
upon  South-Eastern  Europe  have  treated  the 
subject  in  a  partisan  spirit,  some  championing  the 
claims  of  one  nationality,  others  espousing  the 
cause  of  another.  Not  being  an  enthusiastic 
admirer  of  any  one  Balkan  race  to  the  exclusion 
of  all  others,  I  have  endeavoured  to  discover  what 
is  most  for  the  material  progress  and  welfare  of 
them  all.  The  critics  of  "  The  Balkans  "  were 
kind  enough  to  say  that  I  had  been  impartial  in 
narrating  the  history  of  the  Peninsula  ;  I  trust 
that  I  may  be  found  to  have  been  equally  so  in 
describing  its  present  condition, 

I    have    to    acknowledge    my   indebtedness  to   a 
host    of   persons    who    have  assisted    me    with    in- 

IX 


Preface 

formation    and    advice.       Among    them     I     would 
specially    mention     Baron     Kutschera,    Baron    von 
Benko    and    Baron    von     Mollinary,    of    Sarajevo  ; 
Baron    de    Goumoens    and    M.     Bohumil    Para    of 
Plevlje;     Mr.     R.     J.     Kennedy,    C.M.G.,     British 
Minister  to   Monteneoro  ;    the   Montenecjrin   Prime 
Minister     and     his     colleague,     the      Minister     of 
Plnance  ;   M.   Zaimis,  the  present,  and   M.   Rhallis, 
the    ex-Prime    Minister  of   Greece  ;    General  Con- 
stantine  Smolenski,  the  Greek  Minister  of  War  ; ' 
M.   Deligeorgis,   M.   Lambros  Coromelas,  and  Mr. 
Arthur    Hill,    of    Athens,    as    well    as   the    editors 
of   the   "Ao-ru    and    the    WKpoiroXic; ;     Dr.    and     Mrs. 
Dawes,    of    Corfu,    and     Professor    G.    Gelcic,    of 
Ragusa  ;     Sir     A.      Biliotti,     Herr     Pinter,     Herr 
Berinda,    and     M.     Lyghounes     in     Crete  ;     H.H. 
the    Prince    of   Samos    and    Mr.   Denys    L.   Marc, 
British    Consul    in    that   island;    H.E.    Baron  Von 
Calice,    Austro- Hungarian    Ambassador    at     Con- 
stantinople ;  Mr.   Block,  dragoman    of  the    British 
Embassy,    and     Mr.    Tarring,    late    judge    of    the 
Consular  Court  ;    Sir   J.   W.   Whittall,    Mr.    ¥.    S. 
Cobb,    British    Postmaster,  Mr.   Edwin    Pears,    Dr. 
Washburn,      Professor     Panaretoff,     Dr.      Dickson 
and    Mr.    Whitaker,   of   the    same    place  ;    Consul- 
General    and     Mrs.     Blunt     and     Dr.     House,     of 
Salonica ;     Mr.    Wratislaw,     M.    Shopoff,    and    M. 
Constantine   Caltcheff,   of  Philippopolis  ;   Dr.   Clark 
and   Dr.   Kingsbury,  of  Samakov  ;   M.  Grekoff  and 
Professor  Slaveikoff,   of   Sofia  ;   and   the   Bulgarian 

'  Left  (jflicc  Xovfinbcr  lu. 
X 


Preface 

diplomatic  agents  at  Constantinople,  Athens,  and 
Cetinje.  I  am  also  much  obliged  to  Miss  M. 
Chadwick  for  a  number  of  photographs. 

I  have  adopted  the  Croatian  system  of  spelling 
the  Slav  names  of  persons  and  places,  because  it 
is  usually  found  in  the  best  books,  and  avoids  the 
confusion  which  other  methods  of  transliteration 
produce.  Moreover,  Croatian  has  this  advantage 
for  Western  readers — ^that  it  employs  the  Latin 
character.  For  those  who  are  not  familiar  with 
it   I   append  a  short  table  of  pronunciation. 

c  is  pronounced  tz  e.g.  Marica  =  Maritza 
c  ,,  ch  e.g.  Petrovic=  Petrovich 

c  „  tch  e.g.  Bocae  =  Botchatz 

j  ,,  y  e.g.  Jablanica  =  Yablanitza 

s  ,,  sh  e.g.  Dusan  =  Dushan 

z  ,,  j  e.g.  Zabliak  =  Jabliak 

No  good  English  map  of  the  Peninsula  being  in 
existence,  I  have  obtained  permission  to  use  the 
best  German  map,  which  I  have  corrected  so  as 
to  show  the  strategic  rectification  of  the  Thessalian 
frontier  at  the  peace  of  December  4,  1897.  Un- 
fortunately this  has  necessitated  leaving  the  bulk 
of  the  names  in  the  map  in  their  German  dress. 

W.  M. 
10,  Cheyne  Gardens,  Chelsea. 
October  31,  1898. 


XI 


INTRODUCTION 

When  the  inhabitants  of  the  Balkan  Peninsula  are 
meditating-  a  journey  to  any  of  the  countries  which 
lie  to  the  west  of  them,  they  speak  of  "  going  to 
Europe,"  thereby  avowedly  considering  themselves 
as  quite  apart  from  the  European  system.  So  far 
as  "  Europe  "  is  concerned  this  geographical  inac- 
curacy possesses  considerable  justification.  For  of 
all  parts  of  our  continent  none  is  so  little  known  to 
the  average  traveller  as  the  Near  East,  from  which 
he  is  nowadays  but  two-and-a-half  days'  distant  by 
rail.  It  is  no  exag'geration  to  say  that  many 
regions  of  Africa  are  more  familiar  to  the  cultured 
Eno-lishman  or  German  than  the  lands  which  lie 
beyond  the  Adriatic.  Only  when  a  newspaper 
correspondent  reports  from  time  to  time  that  some 
fresh  conspiracy  has  been  detected  against  the  King 
of  Servia  or  the  Prince  of  Bulgaria,  that  the  Greeks 
are  fighting  against  the  Turks  or  paying  their 
creditors,  and  that  Prince  Nicholas  of  Monteneo-ro 
is  disposing  of  one  of  his  daughters  in  marriage, 
does  public  attention  turn  for  a  moment  to  the 
Balkan  States.  Yet  to  the  politician  and  the  his- 
torical  student,   to   the   traveller  and  the  artist,   to 

xiii 


Introduction 

the  man  of  business  and  the  man  of  letters,  few 
countries  should  prove  so  interesting  as  these. 
In  the  Balkan  Peninsula  that  uncanny  bird,  the 
Eastern  question,  has  its  eyrie,  and  there  one  day, 
when  Russia  is  ready,  the  fate  of  the  Ottoman 
Empire  may  be  decided.  There,  too,  under  the 
auspices  of  Austria- Hungary,  perhaps  the  most 
remarkable  experiment  in  the  government  of  an 
Oriental  country  is  being  conducted  ;  while,  in 
other  parts  of  the  same  Peninsula,  young  and 
newly-emancipated  nations  are  demonstrating  their 
capacity,  or  incapacity,  for  managing  their  own 
affairs  on  European  lines  with  all  the  modern 
apparatus  of  Parliament  and  Press.  It  has  been 
reserved  for  the  Balkans,  too,  to  present  us  with 
the  most  curious  instance  of  patriarchal  government 
now  extant ;  and,  in  common  with  Asiatic  Turkey, 
to  prove  to  the  world  that  great  military  power  may 
co-exist  with  the  feeblest  and  most  corrupt  of  civil 
administrations.  Here  again,  in  the  past,  great 
empires,  of  which  Western  Europe  is  almost  uncon- 
scious, rose  up  at  the  bidding  of  some  Bulgarian  or 
Servian  Tsar,  and  then  fell  at  his  death,  yet,  falling, 
left  memories  behind  them  which  have  had  a  lastino- 
effect  on  the  politics  of  our  time.  The  battlefield  of 
Kossovo,  the  exploits  of  the  great  Emperor  Dusan, 
and  the  feats  of  the  mediaeval  rulers  of  Bulg-aria — 
these  are  scarcely  even  names  to  most  of  us  in  the 
West,  but  in  the  Balkans  are  living,  and  sometimes 
very  awkward,  realities.  Here,  four  times  within  the 
present  century,  the  armies  of  the  Russian  and  the 

xiv 


Introduction 

Turk  have  met  ;  and  here,  just  twenty  years  ago, 
the  collective  wisdom  of  Europe  closed  the  last 
great  war  of  our  time.  The  traveller  in  pursuit  of 
the  picturesque  or  in  Hight  from  the  commonplace 
will  find  here  what  he  seeks  and  can  escape  what 
he  shuns.  Full  justice  has  scarcely  even  now  been 
done  to  the  natural  beauties  of  South- Eastern 
Europe.  The  splendid  primaeval  forests  of  Bosnia, 
the  azure  fiords  of  Dalmatia,  the  snow  mountains 
on  the  Macedonian  frontier  of  Bulgaria,  the  gentle 
Enpflish  scenerv  of  Servia,  and  the  "rim  maoni- 
ficence  of  Monteneo-ro's  limestone  citadel — these 
remain,  even  now,  almost  unvisited.  x^nd  in  the 
Balkan  Peninsula  the  interest  of  travel  and  the 
beauties  of  the  landscape  are  immensely  enhanced 
by  the  extraordinary  variety  of  costume  and  cus- 
toms, which  still  happily  linger  on  in  most  parts  of 
the  Near  East.  No  Italian  market-place  can  show 
such  an  amount  of  colour  as  the  squares  of  the 
Dalmatian  coast-towns  ;  no  Swiss  mountaineer  can 
compare  in  physique  or  in  dress  with  the  gigantic, 
crimson-clad  highlanders  of  Cetinje  ;  no  artist's 
model  is  half  so  artistic  as  the  shaven  Albanian, 
with  his  arsenal  of  weapons.  From  the  practical 
standpoint,  too,  the  British  trader  might  with 
advantage  turn  more  attention  to  countries  which, 
though  individually  small,  between  them  muster 
over  ten  million  inhabitants,  and  where  the  British 
commercial  traveller  is  almost  unknown.  And, 
finally,  to  the  literary  man,  the  Balkan  Peninsula, 
with  its  extraordinary  medley  of  races  and  languages, 

XV 


Introduction 

affords  a  field  of  observation  which  is  all  but  virgin 
soil.  Here  the  Hulgarian  and  the  Greek,  the 
Albanian  and  the  Serb,  the  Osmanli,  the  Spanish 
jew  and  the  Roumanian,  live  side  by  side.  Here 
we  have  the  curious  phenomena  of  people  speaking 
practically  the  same  language  yet  using  a  different 
alphabet  ;  of  the  same  race,  split  up  into  three 
distinct  religrions ;  of  converts  from  Christianitv 
becomino"  more  Mussulman  than  the  Turks  them- 
selves.  In  short,  the  Balkan  Peninsula  is,  broadly 
speaking,  the  land  of  contradictions.  Everything 
is  the  exact  opposite  of  what  it  might  reasonably 
be  expected  to  be  ;  the  traveller  finds  himself  in  the 
realms  of  romance,  where  all  his  wonted  ideas  are 
turned  topsy-turvy,  and  soon  falls  into  the  native 
distinction  between  what  they  do  "on  the  Balkan" 
and  what  they  do  in  "  Europe." 


XVI 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER   I. 

THE      THRESHOLD    OF     THE      NEAR      EAST  :      ISTRIA    AND 
DALMATIA. 

PAGE 

From  Trieste  to  Pisiiio — Istrian  politics — Tlie  Foiha — Abbazia — 
Pola — Characteristics  of  Dalmatia — Dalmatian  seamen — Lussin- 
piccolo — Zara — Sebenico — The  Kerka  F'alls — Dalmatian  dress — 
Slavs  and  Italians — Want  of  railways — Trail — Spalato — Ragusa, 
the  "South  Slavonic  Athens" — Dalmatian  politics — Lacroma — 
Valle\-  of  the  Ombla— The  Bocche  di  Cattaro  .         .         .  1-40 


CHAPTER    n. 

A    PATRIARCHAL    PRINCIPALITY  :    MONTENEGRO. 

Effects  of  Princess  Helena's  marriage — Growth  of  Cetinje — 
Character  of  Prince  Nicholas — His  relations  with  England — His 
political  aims — His  relations  with  Austria-Hungary — A  benevolent 
autocrat — His  Court — Montenegrin  dress — Crown  Prince  Danilo — ■ 
Montenegrin  Ministers— Christmas  at  Cetinje — The  standing 
army — Roads  and  Post-ofhce — Montenegrin  harbours — Trade  and 
Education — Scenery — Rjeka — Podgorica — Dioclea — Danilovgrad 
— The  Monasteries  of  Ostrog— Niksic— Ride  to  Risano  4i-!S6 

CHAPTER   III. 

THE    MODEL    BALKAN    STATE  :    BOSNIA    AND    THE     HERCE- 
GOVINA. 

History  prior  to  the  Occupation — The  first  lour  years — Religious 
equality  :  Catholics,  Orthodox,  and  Mussulmans — Education  — 
Technical  training — The  land  question — Railways — Government 
hotels — Trade — The  Press — Administration — Montenegrin  aspira- 
tions— Taxation — Public  health — Baron  and  Baroness  Von  Kallay 
— The  future  of  the  Occupied  territory  ....       <S7-i30 

xvii 


Contents 


CHAPTER   IV. 
THROUGH    THE    OCCUPIED   TERRITORY. 

PAGE 

F'rom  Ragusa  to  Metkovlc  :  the  Xarcnta  Canal — Incidents  of  rail- 
way-travel— Pocitelj  —  Mostar — Bridge  and  bazar — Costume  — 
The  source  of  the  Buna — Radobolje — Jablanica — The  Bogomiles 
— Konjica — The  Bosnian  Capital — Its  buildings  old  and  new — 
Cemetriesand  dervishes — A  Bosnian  bath — Travnik  and  its  tattooed 
women — Jajce — The  last  Bosnian  king — Jezero — Banjaluka — The 
Croatian  frontier — By  wood  train  to  the  Bosna — Maglaj,  past  and 
present — Vranduk  .  .  131-177 


CHAPTER   V. 

'tWIXT   AUSTRIAN'    AXD    TURK  :     THE    SAXDZAK    OF    XOVI- 
BAZAR. 

From  Sarajevo  to  the  frontier  —  Cajnica  —  Administration:  the 
mixed  Occupation— Judicial  system — Political  importance  of  the 
"  military  colony  " — From  the  frontier  to  Plevlje — Plevlje — The 
Pasha — Monastery  of  the  Holy  Trinity — Railway  prospects — 
Down  the  Drina  on  a  raft — Visegrad  and  Rogatica — Back  to 
Sarajevo 178-205 


CHAPTER   VI. 

BARBARISM    AXD    CIVILIS.ATIOX  :    THE    ALBAXIAX    CO.A.ST 
AXD     CORFU. 

The  Albanian  question — Medua  — Durazzo,  past  and  present  — 
Valona— Santi  Quaranta— Corfu,  Homeric  and  British —  The 
King's  Villa— Corfu  during  the  war— Palaeokastri/za— Ascension 
Day — Cephalonia — Zante 206-236 


CHAPTER   VII. 
GREECE  :    THE    COUXTRY   AXD    THE    CAPITAL. 

A  Greek  inn— Olympia— Railways  — Patras  — Monasteries  :  Mega- 
spelaion— Greek  saddles— Delphi— Corinth  :  its  canal  and  citadel 
— Nauplia — The  Easter  dances  at  Megara — Characteristics  of 
Athens — Good  Friday  and  the  earthquakes — Athens  during  the 
war :  the  Press,  the  hospitals  and  the  refugees— Piraeus- 
Marathon— Brigandage— Volo— The  Turks  in  Thessaly  .  237-278 
xviii 


Contents 


CHAPTER   VIII. 
GREECE  :    DEMOCRACY    UNLIMITED. 

PAGE 

The  King  :  the  reversion  of  feeling  in  his  favour — Greelc  politi- 
cians :  MM.  Delyannis,  Rhallis,  Zaimis,  Strait,  Deligeorgis,  and 
Karapanos — General  Smolenski — The  Greek  Parliament — Parties 
— Salaries — Reforms  now  advocated — The  "  spoils  system  " — 
Over-education — Neglect  of  the  provinces — Police — Is  a  second 
chamber  possible  ? — The  King's  duty — Importance  of  Greece  to 
Great  Britain— The  future 279-320 


CHAPTER    IX. 
CRETE    UNDER   THE    CONXERT. 

The  quay  at  Canea — Western  amusements — Conflicting  jurisdic- 
tions— Russia's  aims  in  Crete — The  British  at  Candia — The  Chris- 
tians at  Aliakanou — Isolation  of  the  two  parties — Devastation  of 
the  island — The  bright  side — A  Mussulman  picnic — The  market  at 
Halmj-ros — The  Candidature  of  Prince  George  :  conditions  of 
its  success — Disadvantages  of  the  Prince — Will  Crete  desire  ulti- 
mate union  with  Greece  ? — Specimens  of  Turkish  misrule — Cost 
of  Crete  to  Turkey  322-352 


CHAPTER  X. 

SAMOS  :    A    STUDY    IN    AUTONOMY. 

Vathy — The  Prince  of  Samos — No  analogy  witli  Crete — Prosperity 
of  Samos — Its  Government  and  educational  system — Success  of 
Autonomy — Another  autonomous  island  :  Ada  Kalch     .         .     353-362 


CHAPTER   XI. 

THE    PROMISED    LAND  :    MACEDONIA. 

Salonica,  seen  from  the  sea  and  on  land — The  Macedonian  ques- 
tion— The  doctrine  f)f  nationalities — Mixture  of  races  in  Mace- 
donia— The  Bulgarian  claims — The  Servian  claims — The  claims 
of  Greece — Those  of  the  Roumanians  and  of  the  Albanians 
—"Macedonia  for  the  Macedonians"  —  Austria-Hungary  at 
Salonica    ...........     363-389 

xix 


Contents 


CHAPTER   XII. 
THE   CYNOSURE    OF   THE    NEAR    EAST  :    STAMBUL. 

■  I>A(jE 

Turkish  officialdom — Tiie  spy  system — Censorship  of  the  Press  — 
The  foreign  post-olftces — The  currency — A  bookseller's  experi- 
ences— Yol  tcskerch — Impediments  to  trade — The  Sultan  and  his 
system — Cause  of  tlie  Armenian  massacres — Robert  College — 
Turkish  women — Brusa — Society  at  Stambtil — ^The  dogs — Monte- 
negrin cavassi's — Fires — A  householder's  woes — Turkish  time — 
Suburban  resorts    .........     390-432 


CHAPTER   XIII. 

AN    EXPERIMENT    IN    EMANCIP.\TION  :    BULGARIA. 

Bulgarian  coinage  —  Bourgas  —  Philippopolis  —  Through  the  Valley 
of  Roses  to  the  Shipka  Pass — Bulgarian  surgery — The  "Bulgarian 
Switzerland  " — Missionaries  at  Samakov — The  servant  question — 
Sofia  —  New  railways — The  Sobraiije  —  Prince  Boris  —  Prince 
Ferdinand— The  politicians  :  Dr.  Stoiloff,  M.  Grekoff,  and  M. 
Nacevic — Treatment  of  Mussulmans — Slivnica — Relations  with 
Servia — King  Alexander  and  his  father — Servia  and  Austria- 
Hungary — Servian  scenery — Nis — Belgrade  .         .         .     433-478 


CHAPTER   XIV. 

THE    GREAT    POWERS    IN    THE    NEAR    EAST. 

Solutions  of  the  Eastern  Question  —  A  Balkan  Confederation  —  A 
Servian,  Bulgarian,  or  Greek  Empire — A  reformed  Turkey — A 
settlement  by  the  Great  Powers — The  Eastern  policy  of  Great 
Britain — Decline  of  British  trade  and  influence — Growth  of  Ger- 
man power — France  and  Italy  in  the  Near  East — Austria-Hungary 
and  Russia — The  "  sick  man's  "  protracted  death-agony         .     479-509 


Index 


511 


XX 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

STAMBUL  .....  Frontispiece 

ATHENS        ......  Vignette 

PAGE 

THE    FOTbA,    PISINO           .....  5 

THE    AMPHITHEATRE,    POLA                   .                  .                  .  -9 

CASA    ROSSINI,    SEBENICO                .                .                .                 .  IJ 

THE    LOGGIA,    TRAU                     .                  ,                  .                  .  ■         ^3 

SPALATO                   ......  25 

THE    MARKET-PLACE,    RAGUSA              .                 .                 .  -9 

PALACE    OF   THE    RECTOR,    RAGUSA            .                  .                  .  3I 

CASTELNUOVO               .                  .                  .                  .                  .  -37 

CATTARO                   ......  39 

PALACE    AT    CETINJE.       PRINCE    NICHOLAS    AND    THE    KING 

OF  SERVIA  .  .  .  .  .  -48 

PORTRAIT   OF   PRINCE    NICHOLAS   OUTSIDE    BRITISH    LEGA- 
TION ......  57 

POSTMASTER   AND    LANDLORD              .                 .                 .  -70 

MONTENEGRIN    BOYS         .....  76 

DANILOVGRAD              .                 .                 .                 .                 .  .         80 

COFFIN   OF   LAST   BOSNIAN    KING                 ...  88 

CORPUS    CHRISTI    DAY    AT    MOSTAR    .                                    .  -92 

MOSTAR,    HERCEGOVINA                    ....  93 

xxi 


List  of  Illustrations 


PAGE 


MECCA    PILGRIMS       .  .  •  •  •  -95 

A    MUSSULMAN   WOMAN                    ....  lOO 

SARAJEVO       .                 .                                  .                 •                 •  1-4 

BARONESS   VON    KALLAV.                  .                  .                                   .  I26 

''a    whole    BOATLOAD    OF    MEN    AND    WOMEN"        .                  .  I32 

MUSSULMAN   WOMAN   OF   MOSTAR               .                 .                 .  1 35 

CHRISTIAN   WOMEN   AT    MOSTAR         ....  I36 

THE    SOURCE   OF   THE    BUNA        ....  I39 

"a    BOSNIAK    CARRYING   A    RAM    ON    HIS    BACK "        .                  .  I46 

THE    BAZAR   AT   SARAJEVO                ....  I48 

"the    SHADY   TURN    OF  THE    RIVER   WHERE   THE    MUSSUL- 
MAN   DELIGHTS   TO    DRINK    HIS    COFFEE "           .                 .  151 

STREET    IN    TRAVNIK         .                  .                  .                  .                  .  154 

IN    THE    BAZAR   AT   TRAVNIK  .  .  .  -156 

JAJCE  :    THE    OLD    BOSNIAN    CAPITAL         .                  .                  .  158 

PENANCE   AT   JAJCE                    .                 .                 .                 .                 .  160 

"THE    BEAUTIFUL    MINARET    .     .     .    WHICH     ADORNS    THE 

FERHADIJA    MOSQUE  "              .                  .                  .                  .  166 

YRANDUK       .  .  .  .  ,  .  -175 

CAJNICA                    ......  180 

PLEVLJE          .......  191 

"the   SERB   WOMEN,    WHO    HERE    WEAR    .    .    .    KILTS    OVER 

THEIR    LONG    GARMENTS"   ....  I93 

THE    BAZAR,    PLEVLJE              .....  195 

OUR    RAFT  ON    THE    DRINA             ....  I98 

OLD    BRIDGE   AT   VISEGRAD                    ....  I99 

GIPSIES,    VISEGRAD             .....  200 

A    STREET    SCENE,    VISEGRAD                ....  201 

xxii 


List  of  Illustrations 


PAGE 

CHILDREN    AT    VISEGRAD                 ....  202 

OUR   CARRIAGE    AT    PODROMANJA       ....  204 

OLIVE    GROVE,    CORFU     .                 .                 .                 .                 .  215 

ROYAL    PALACE,     FORMER    RESIDENCE    OF    BRITISH     LORD 

HIGH    COMMISSIONER          .....  221 

"  ROUGH    MOUNTAINEERS    .    .    .    WITH    THEIR    VAST    CLOAKS 

OF    frieze"                 .....  224 

"a    humble    HAN   .    .    .    SUPPORTED     ON    WHITE- WASHED 

pillars"        ......  228 

palaeokastrizza,  corfu          ....  23o 

corfiote  woman   ......  234 

DELPHI                    ......  248 

THE    CORINTH    CANAL  .  .  .  .  -251 

M.    DELYANNIS     ......  286 

M.    RHALLIS                   ......  290 

GENERAL    SMOLENSKI  (MINISTER    OF   WAR)            .                  .  299 

CANEA,    AFTER   THE    RIOTS   OF   FEBRUARY,    1897      .                 .  32I 

THE    QUAY    OF    CANEA      .....  322 

MOUND  AT    CANEA   (SHOWING   FLAGS   OF  TURKEY   AND   THE 

POWERS)               ......  324 

STREET    IN    CANDIA            .....  327 

CHRISTIAN    INSURGENTS   AT    ALIAKANOU         .                  .                  .  33O 

RETHYMNO             ......  333 

A    MUSSULMAN    PICNIC    NEAR    CANDIA               .                  .                  .  336 

SIR   A.    BILIOTTI    AND    COLONEL    SIR    H.    CHERMSIDE    WITH 

GROUP   OF    CRETAN    CHIEFS                  .                  .                  .  34I 

CRETAN    BOYS               ......  343 

CANDIA    .......  345 

A    BAIRAM    RAM  :    CANEA         .....  350 

xxiii 


List  of  Illustrations 


PAGE 


CRETAN    LADIES   SHOPPING            .                 •                 .  35^ 

VATHY  :   SAMOS          ......  353 

POLICEMAN    AT   VATHY    .                  .                  .                  .                  .  355 

SAMIANS          .......  359 

"SALONICA,    SEEN    FROM    THE    SEA  "         .                  .                  .  364 

"THE    FINE    OLD    ARCH    OF   THE    EMPEROR    GALERIUS  "        .  368 

A    JEWESS   OF   SALONICA                    ....  383 

THE    BRITISH    POST    OFFICE,    GALATA                .                  .                  .  396 
"the    lord    of    the    OTTOMAN    EMPIRE    GOES    FORTH    TO 

HIS  devotions"    .....  406 

CARTS    USED   TO    CONVEY    MASSACRED    ARMENIANS  .                  .  4O9 

"the    great    towers    OF    THE     *  CASTLE     OF     EUROPE'"  413 

BRUSA      .......  419 

RUSSIAN    MONUMENT,    SAN    STEFANO  .  .  -431 

BULGARIAN    BRIDE              .....  434 

PHILIPPOPOLIS            ......  438 

BULGARIANS    DANCING     .....  442 

BULGARIAN    PEASANTS              .....  446 

THE    PALACE,    SOFIA           .....  457 

"the   TINY    PRINCE    DRIVES    OUT "                    .                  .                  .  461 

BRIDGE     OVER    THE     MARICA,     SCENE     OF    THE     PHILIPPO- 
POLIS   MURDER          .....  464 

JOSEPH      HANEMIAN,      THE      MURDERED      CLERK     OF      THE 

BRITISH    POST   OFFICE                     ....  492 

MAP  (in  pocket  a    end  of  volume). 


XXIV 


Travels  and  Politics  in  the  Near  East 


CHAPTER    I 

THE   THRESHOLD   OF   THE   NEAR   EAST  :    ISTRIA   AND 
DA  LM  ATI  A 

OF  the  countless  travellers  who  pass  through  Trieste 
every  year  on  their  way  to  the  East,  few  have  the 
curiosity  to  explore  the  peninsula,  which  runs  far  out 
into  the  azure-blue  waters  of  the  Adriatic  and  divides  the 
great  Austrian  seaport  from  the  lovely  gulf  of  the 
Quarnero.  Istria  is  still  the  least  known  of  all  the 
Austrian  provinces,  although  the  "discovery"  of  Abbazia 
by  an  enterprising  railway  company  has  in  recent  years 
attracted  the  attention  of  Viennese  society  to  the  charms 
of  its  eastern  coast.  But,  in  spite  of  the  excellent  service 
of  steamers,  which  call  at  all  the  principal  places  on  its 
shores,  and  the  state  railway,  which  traverses  the  interior 
from  end  to  end,  the  Istrian  peninsula  is  less  familiar  to 
British  tourists  than  that  of  Sinai,  and  many  educated 
Englishmen  have  never  so  much  as  heard  its  name. 

Yet  no  country  in  Europe  presents  such  rapid  and 
remarkable  changes  of  scenery.  At  one  point  you  have 
waving  groves  of  laurel  and  smiling  vineyards,  with  a 
climate  which  recalls  that  of  the  French  Riviera ;  at 
another,  barren  rocks  and  a  total  lack  of  vegetation 
remind  you  that  you  are  in  the  domam  of  the  bora,  that 
terrible  wind,  which  is  the  scourge  of  the  Adriatic,  which 

I  B 


Travels  and   Politics 

blows  railway  trains  off  the  track  and  sweeps  away  trees 
and  unroofs  buildings  in  its  headlong  course.  The  soil, 
too,  is  all  the  colours  of  the  rainbow.  White  Istria, 
yellow  Istria,  red  Istria  follow  each  other  in  quick  suc- 
cession, and,  when  lighted  up  by  the  rays  of  the  setting 
sun,  the  red  earth  becomes  a  gorgeous  purple,  marvellous 
to  behold. 

The  Istrian  railway,  which  slowly  winds  its  tortuous 
path  up  the  hills  above  the  gulf  of  Trieste,  enters  the 
stony  desert  of  the  Karst,  a  region  which  for  barrenness 
is  unequalled  in  all  Europe.  Yet  there  is  something 
quaint  and  ev^en  attractive  about  these  limestone  boulders 
scattered  hither  and  thither  broadcast  over  the  land,  like 
missiles  in  some  battle  of  the  giants.  We  pass  by  deep 
ravines,  formed  by  almost  perpendicular  walls  of  rock,  with 
here  and  there  a  tiny  chapel  clinging  on  to  the  mountain- 
side, while,  far  below,  the  sea  shimmers  in  the  sunlight. 
And  then  the  line  turns  down  into  the  peninsula,  and  the 
quaint  old  towns  of  Istria,  with  names  as  picturesque  as 
their  situation,  begin  to  appear.  The  fat  fingers  of  a  very 
loquacious  lady,  who  is  going  to  Pola,  wave  to  and  fro  in 
front  of  the  carriage  window,  as  she  discusses  her  family 
affairs  with  a  new-found  acquaintance,  and  prevent  us 
from  seeing  as  much  of  the  view^  as  we  could  w^ish.  But 
a  lucid  interval  fortunately  intervenes  as  we  approach 
Pinguente,  once  the  seat  of  the  margraves  of  Istria,  who 
built  the  walls  which  still  surround  it.  Perched  on  a 
hilltop,  Pinguente  seems  the  very  ideal  of  those  old 
Italian  cities  which  Virgil  has  so  graphically  depicted  as 
"  piled  by  force  on  the  summit  of  steep  rocks  " — congesta 
nianu  pnvruptis  oppida  saxis. 

It  was  evening  when  we  arrived  at  Pisino,  the  most 
interesting  place  in  the  interior  of  the  peninsula,  and  we 
wondered  whether  a  habitable  inn  existed  in  so  primitive 
a  spot,  for  we  had  read  strange  descriptions  of   Istrian 

2 


in    the   Near   East 

accommodation.  But  our  fears  were  speedily  set  at  rest 
by  a  smart  young  fellow,  who  at  once  stepped  forward 
and  offered  to  escort  us  to  the  Aqnila  Nera.  The  "  Black 
Eagle  "  proved  to  be  a  comfortable  inn,  such  as  one  finds 
in  small  Italian  towns,  where  the  linen  was  of  spotless 
whiteness  and  the  Istrian  wine  at  80  kreuzers  (or 
IS.  4d.)  a  litre,  as  sound  a  vintage  as  the  heart  of  man 
could  desire.  Our  host,  though  an  Istrian  by  birth,  was, 
like  some  of  his  compatriots,  an  Italian  by  sentiment. 
He  had,  indeed,  hung  up  in  his  parlour  the  inevitable 
portraits  of  the  Austrian  Emperor  and  Empress,  which 
adorn  every  inn,  however  humble,  throughout  the  length 
and  breadth  of  the  Monarchy.  But  his  real  interest  was 
centred  on  a  map  of  the  seat  of  the  war,  then  going  on 
in  Abyssinia,  by  the  aid  of  which  he  was  following  the 
fortunes  of  the  Italian  troops  with  the  closest  attention. 
Indeed,  some  Italian  extremists  go  so  far  as  to  include 
Istria  in  that  "  unredeemed  Italy  "  which  they  hope  one 
day  to  see  comprised  within  the  kingdom  of  Umberto. 
It  is  true  that,  though  Istria  has  been  in  the  uninterrupted 
possession  of  the  House  of  Hapsburg  ever  since  1814,  a 
large  section  of  the  population,  amounting  at  the  last 
census  to  45  per  cent.,  is  Italian  by  race  and  language, 
just  as  it  was  in  the  days  when,  prior  to  1797,  Venice 
owned  the  peninsula.  Three  years  ago  the  Italian 
element  in  Istria  was  particularly  demonstrative  against 
the  Slavs,  for  here,  as  in  Dalmatia,  though  in  vastly 
different  proportions,  these  two  races  practically  divide 
the  country  between  them.  When  it  was  decided  that 
public  notices  at  the  Courts  of  Justice  should  be  put  up 
in  both  languages,  and  that  jurymen  should  be  expected 
to  understand  the  two  idioms,  the  indignation  of  the 
Italian  party  found  vent  in  acts  of  violence.  At  Pirano 
the  military  had  to  be  called  out  ;  at  another  place  the 
mob  tore  down  the  offending  notice-boards  ;  and  finally 

3 


Travels  and  Politics  in  the  Near  East 

the  commotion  was  such  tliat  the  Government  dissolved 
the  local  assembly,  which  meets  to  discuss  the  internal 
affairs  of  the  province.  At  the  beginning  of  this  year 
that  body  was  convoked,  not,  as  usual,  at  Parenzo,  but 
at  Pola.  Since  then,  encouraged  by  a  section  of  the 
Italian  press,  the  agitation  has  gone  on  intermittently. 
But  no  sensible  statesman  in  Italy  regards  the  Irredentists 
as  serious  persons,  or  the  cession  of  Istria  as  within  the 
range  of  practical  politics. 

We  were  aroused  early  in  the  morning  by  the  sound 
of  the  bells,  which  were  being  rung  with  tremendous 
energy  in  the  adjacent  cainpaiiile.  It  was  a  great  festival 
of  the  Church,  and  a  long  line  of  peasants,  cap  in  hand 
and  with  their  fingers  devoutly  clasped  in  front  of  them, 
defiled  through  the  streets  behind  the  priests,  who  were 
bearing  the  sacred  banners  before  them.  The  men  were 
excellent  types  of  the  Istrian  people — stolid,  phlegmatic 
fellows,  who  never  manifest  the  smallest  interest  or 
curiosity  in  a  stranger,  though  strangers  are  none  too 
common  in  their  country.  In  Sicily  I  have  known  a 
whole  crowd  of  street  loungers  come  up  to  my  bedroom 
for  the  mere  pleasure  of  hearing  me  order  my  dinner  or 
pay  my  driver,  while  a  single  question,  addressed  to  a 
bystander,  would  at  once  attract  a  host  of  inquisitive 
onlookers,  each  eager  to  kno'.v  my  business,  and  have  a 
finger  in  it,  if  possible.  But  your  Istrian  is  not  of  that 
sort.  He  goes  on  his  way,  perfectly  regardless  of  the 
stranger  within  his  gates.  In  his  rough  frieze  coat  and 
short  breeches  he  looks  intensely  bucolic,  but  the  huge 
earring,  which  he  wears  in  one  ear,  gives  him  a  dis- 
tinguishing characteristic  which  is  quite  his  own. 

Pisino  possesses  in  the  Fo'iba  a  natural  attraction, 
which  is  at  present  undefiled  by  the  hoof  of  the  tripper. 
If  situated  in  Germany  or  Switzerland  it  would  have  long 
ago   been  disfigured  by  advertisements  of    chocolate,  a 

4 


THE   FOiBA,    PISINO 


Travels  and   Politics 

cog-wheel  railway,  tin  edifices  from  which  to  admire  the 
view,  and  all  the  other  abominations  invented  by  tourist 
associations  for  the  "improvement"  of  nature.  Here 
the  Foiba  is  left  in  its  native  wildness,  and  the  visitor  to 
his  own  devices.  Suddenly,  at  the  end  of  the  main 
street,  one  comes  upon  a  grand  old  donjon,  dating  from 
the  eleventh  century,  whose  walls  are  still  emblazoned 
with  the  arms  of  the  counts  who  once  dwelt  there,  while 
a  whole  colony  of  swallows  have  made  their  nests  beneath 
its  hospitable  eaves.  The  castle  is  built  on  a  terrace  of 
rock,  and  300  feet  below  it  the  river  F^oTba  winds  its  way 
along  the  bottom  of  the  ravine,  and  disappears  in  a  deep 
chasm  beneath  the  earth.  Slowly  and  by  a  precipitous 
path  we  descended  into  the  gulf  and  climbed  over  the 
boulders  of  rock,  which  mark  the  course  of  the  stream,  up 
to  the  mouth  of  the  chasm.  No  human  being  has  ever 
explored  its  inmost  recesses  and  discovered  where  the 
river  ultimately  emerges  from  its  subterranean  channel. 
A  young  Austrian  official.  Count  Mathias  Esdorf,  once 
made  the  attempt  in  a  small  boat,  but  with  no  other 
result  than  to  inspire  M.  Jules  Verne  with  the  plot  of  one 
of  his  most  exciting  novels.  In  the  French  romance  a 
prisoner  escapes  from  his  cell  in  the  donjon,  climbs  down 
into  the  chasm  and  gains  his  freedom  through  the  hole, 
or  biico,  as  the  natives  call  it,  into  which  the  F'oiba  pours 
its  waters.  It  is,  however,  supposed  that  the  channel 
communicates  with  the  fiord  of  Leme,  which  runs  inland 
towards  Pisino  from  the  west  coast  of  Istria.  At  any 
rate,  objects  thrown  into  the  biico  have  been  picked  up 
near  the  estuary  of  the  fiord.  I  have  seen  several  of 
these  mysterious  underground  passages  in  the  Balkan 
Peninsula,  where  they  are  not  uncommon,  but  only  one 
of  them,  that  near  Mostar,  can  compare  in  grandeur  with 
that  of  the  Foiba.  The  view  from  below  of  the  beetling 
rocks,  rising    perpendicular    from    the    chasm,  with    the 

6 


in  the  Near  East 

town  nestling  on  the  summit,  the  grey  old  walls  of  the 
donjon,  and  the  distant  roar  of  the  waters  beneath  the 
ground,  make  a  great  impression,  only  partially  conveyed 
to  those  who  have  not  seen  and  heard  them  by  the  aid  of 
a  travelling  photographer  from  Pola,  whom  we  unearthed 
in  a  back-yard. 

It  w^ould  be  difficult  to  conceive  a  greater  contrast  than 
that  between  this  mediaeval  spot,  which  has  not  changed 
since  the  days  of  its  ancient  counts,  and  the  lovely 
watering-place  of  Abbazia,  the  gem  of  the  Istrian  coast. 
Centuries  ago  a  Benedictine  Abbey  was  founded  there 
and  gave  Abbazia  its  name,  but  until  the  last  sixteen 
years  that  now  celebrated  health  resort,  patronised  by 
emperors  and  kings,  and  striving  to  rival  Cannes  and 
Mentone,  was  nothing  but  a  few  fishermen's  huts.  But 
in  1882  the  manager  of  the  Southern  Railway  Company 
of  Austria,  struck  with  the  charms  of  the  place,  resolved 
to  make  Abbazia  into  a  fashionable  Curort.  Large  hotels, 
the  property  of  the  railway  company,  now  rise  amidst 
groves  of  laurel,  with  gardens  running  down  to  the  bright 
blue  waters  of  the  bay.  Shops  and  a  colonnade  hav^e 
been  built  to  exhibit  all  the  latest  fashions  of  Vienna,  and 
when  we  arrived  at  the  little  station  of  Mattuglie,  which 
serves  Abbazia,  we  realised  at  once  from  the  photograph 
in  the  booking-office,  which  represented  the  meeting  of 
the  German  and  Austrian  Emperors  on  the  occasion  of 
their  visit  in  1894,  that  the  fortune  of  the  place  was  made. 
But  nothing  could  spoil  the  beauty  of  Abbazia,  though  its 
sweet  simplicity  was  gone,  and  the  scale  of  prices  at  its 
palatial  hotels  is  somewhat  different  from  the  modest  sum 
of  3  gulden,  27  kreuzers  (or  about  5s.  6d.),  which  we  had 
paid  for  bed  and  a  whole  day's  board  for  two  persons  at 
Pisino.  The  walk  along  the  coast  through  luxuriant 
vineyards,  the  blue  sea  and  sky,  and,  in  the  distance, 
floating    as    it    were    in    the    water,    the    islands    of    the 


Travels  and  Politics  in  the  Near  East 

Quarnero — broad  Veglia,  and  long,  rocky  Cherso,  where 
the  old  Argonautic  legend  placed  the  crime  of  Medea — 
this  may,  indeed,  compare  with  the  view  from  the 
Corniche  over  the  Mediterranean  littoral.  No  wonder 
that  to  an  ardent  yachtsman  like  the  German  Emperor 
Abbazia  was  specially  attractive,  or  that  the  poetic 
Queen  of  Roumania  chooses  it  as  a  favourite  spot.  In 
fact,  were  it  not  for  the  occasional  blasts  of  the  dreaded 
bora,  the  curse  of  the  Austrian,  just  as  the  mistral  is  the 
bane  of  the  French,  Riviera,  the  place  would  be  an  earthly 
paradise. 

Comparatively  small  as  it  is,  Istria  presents  in  Pola  yet 
another  contrast,  which  after  mediaeval  Pisino  and  nine- 
teenth century  fashionable  Abbazia  comes  as  a  striking 
change.  And,  indeed,  Pola  is  in  itself  a  town  of  opposites, 
where  the  two  extremes  of  ancient  remains  and  modern 
naval  works  coexist  side  by  side.  For  Pola  is  at  once  an 
Austrian  Portsmouth  and  an  old  Roman  town.  Here  a 
superb  amphitheatre  rises  on  the  edge  of  the  water,  where 
the  last  new  ironclad  is  lying  at  anchor ;  here  the  Golden 
Gate  and  the  Temple  of  Augustus  have  dockyards  and 
arsenals  as  their  neighbours,  and  the  statue  of  Tegetthoff, 
the  Austrian  Nelson,  looks  down  on  the  narrow,  stone- 
paved  streets,  where  Diana's  ruined  fane  affords  silent 
record  of  the  past.  The  mailed  figure  of  an  Istrian 
margrave  on  the  wall  of  the  town-hall  seems  out  of  place 
among  the  naval  officers,  who  are  strolling  in  what  was 
once  the  forum.  But  Pola  is  more  prosperous  now  than  it 
has  been  for  centuries.  The  recent  movement  in  Austria- 
Hungary  for  a  development  of  the  navy  and  the 
foundation  of  a  newspaper  this  year  for  the  express  pur- 
pose of  combating  the  old  theory,  which  considered  the 
Monarchy  as  essentially,  and  almost  exclusively,  an  inland 
State,  cannot  fail  to  benefit  the  place,  even  though  the 
Bocche    di  Cattaro   are   likely  to    divide    with    it  in   the 

8 


Travels  and    Politics 

future,  even  more  than  in  the  present,  the  privilege  of  a 
great  naval  harbour. 

Given  fair  weather,  nothing  can  be  more  delightful 
than  a  voyage  along  the  eastern  shores  of  the  Adriatic. 
There  is  none  of  the  monotony  of  ocean  travel  in  Dalma- 
tian waters,  for,  with  one  or  two  exceptions,  the  steamer's 
course  is  never  out  in  the  open  sea,  and  even  then  land 
is  always  in  sight.  P'or  most  of  the  way  you  glide  as  in  a 
river  between  the  islands  and  the  coast,  threading  mag- 
nificent fiords — but  fiords  beneath  a  Southern  sky — or 
stopping  beneath  the  grey  walls  of  some  mediaeval  town, 
whose  inhabitants,  dressed  in  the  most  artistic  of  cos- 
tumes, throng  the  quays  and  fill  the  steep,  narrow 
streets  and  old-fashioned  squares,  like  the  chorus  in 
Italian  opera.  Dalmatia,  it  is  true,  lacks  vegetation,  and 
the  eye  is  somewhat  wearied  by  the  eternal  whiteness 
of  her  conical  hills  and  stony  uplands.  But  the  colour 
harmonises  well  with  the  intense  blue  of  sky  and  sea,  and 
the  brilliant  scarlet  costumes  of  the  peasantry.  In  places, 
too,  as  between  Trau  and  Spalato,  at  Ragusa,  in  the  island 
of  Lesina,  and  on  the  hills  above  the  lovely  Bocche  di 
Cattaro,  trees  and  shrubs  grow  luxuriantly,  and  the  great 
success  which  has  attended  the  efforts  of  the  Austrian 
Government  at  planting  the  shores  of  the  Bocche  and  a 
part  of  Istria  during  the  short  space  of  eighteen  years  proves 
that  in  course  of  time  the  bare  Dalmatian  coast  may,  with 
proper  care,  become  green  and  fertile.  Last  year  alone 
3,219,000  new  trees  were  planted  in  the  Karst  regions  of 
Gorz  and  Gradisca  at  a  cost  of  9,782  gulden,  so  that  in 
course  of  time  the  ravages  of  the  Venetian  shipbuilders 
and  the  destructive  goats  will  be  repaired.  Dalmatia  is, 
indeed,  the  Cinderella  of  the  Austrian  provinces,  and 
she  has  been  neglected  in  the  past  by  the  statesmen  of 
Vienna.  As  a  Dalmatian  priest  once  remarked  to  me, 
"  the  Austrians  regard  Dalmatia  as  the  other  end  of  the 

10 


in   the  Near   East 

world,"  and  I  am  told  that  nearly  all  the  roads  in  the 
country  date  from  the  brief  French  occupation  between 
1805  and  1814,  when  Marshal  Marmont  employed  his 
soldiers  in  improving  the  means  of  communication. 
Indeed,  far  more  has  been  done  for  Bosnia  and  the 
Hercegovina  during  the  twenty  years  of  the  Austrian 
occupation  than  for  Dalmatia  in  the  eighty-four  which 
have  elapsed  since  she  definitely  became  a  part  of  the 
Monarchy.  Politics  have,  unfortunately,  had  a  great 
deal  to  do  with  this  neglect.  It  is  pitiful  to  read  the 
bitter  articles  with  which  the  Slav  and  Italian  journals  of 
Dalmatia  attack  one  another,  instead  of  uniting  for  the 
common  weal  and  endeavouring  to  raise  the  material 
standard  of  the  country.  "  Politics,"  said  a  very 
distinguished  Dalmatian  to  me,  "  have  been  our  ruin," 
and  here,  as  in  so  many  parts  of  the  Monarchy,  politics 
are  entirely  a  question  of  race  and  language.  But  there 
are  signs  that  Austria  has  at  last  begun  to  recognise  the 
great  value  of  the  Dalmatian  ports  and  the  Dalmatian 
seamen.  The  Imperial  navy  is  entirely  recruited  from 
the  seafaring  population  of  this  coast ;  the  captains  of  the 
merchant  marine  are  all  Dalmatians,  in  many  cases 
Bocchcsi,  or  natives  of  the  Bocche  di  Cattaro,  and  the 
shores  of  that  lovely  fiord  and  the  peninsula  of  Sabion- 
cello  are  dotted  with  white  houses,  where  these  veterans 
spend  the  evening  of  their  days  on  the  borders  of  that  sea 
which  they  know  so  well.  A  British  admiral  once  said 
that  the  Dalmatian  sailors  could  alone  compare  with  the 
men  of  our  own  eastern  coast,  thanks  to  the  early  ex- 
perience which  they  gain  of  the  treacherous  currents, 
the  fickle  breezes,  and  the  intricate  navigation  of  the 
Adriatic.  For,  though  on  all  my  visits  that  sea  was  as  calm 
as  a  lake  for  days  together,  there  are  seasons  when  it  well 
merits  the  epithet  of  "turbid,"  which  Horace  long  ago 
applied  to   it.      Woe  betide   the   unskilled   mariner  who 

II 


Travels   and   Politics 

ventures  out  in  those  narrow  channels  when  the  bora  is 
blowing.  Their  very  names  are  indicative  of  bad 
weather,  and  one  of  them  is  significantly  called  the 
Canale  di  Mai  Tempo.  But  Hadria,  as  I  know  him,  has 
always  proved  mild  and  gentle. 

The  Austrian-Lloyd  and  Hungarian-Croatian  steamship 
companies,  which  divide  between  them  the  passenger 
traffic  of  the  coast,  do  all  they  can  to  make  the  trip 
pleasant  and  comfortable.  The  vessels  of  both  lines  are 
well  appointed,  the  officers  are  most  polite,  and  the  table 
is  excellent.  The  only  complaint  which  1  had  to  make 
with  the  meals  was  that  they  were  too  long — a  criticism 
which  could  not  be  applied  to  the  berths.  The  wine  is 
everywhere  good  in  Dalmatia,  and  in  some  places,  such 
as  Sebenico,  far  above  the  average  quality.  Dinner  on 
board  is  always  a  most  sociable  meal,  even  for  travellers 
who  cannot  speak  any  language  but  English,  for  the  cap- 
tain is  sure  to  have  been  at  some  time  or  other  in  British 
ports,  and  has  usually  picked  up  a  good  many  English 
words.  I  know  one  captain  in  the  employ  of  the  Austrian- 
Lloyd  who  speaks  German,  English,  Italian,  French, 
Serb,  Turkish,  and  a  little  Albanian — the  last  a  very  rare 
accomplishment  even  for  those  who  have  lived  in  Albania. 
So  proud  was  he  of  his  acquaintance  with  our  country 
and  speech,  that  he  used  to  keep  Whitaker's  Almanack  on 
the  dinner-table  and  read  passages  out  of  it  for  my  edifica- 
tion. He  could  tell  without  reference  to  the  precious 
volume  the  exact  emoluments  of  every  British  Consul  in 
the  south-east  of  Europe,  and  I  never  saw  him  at  a  loss 
for  a  phrase,  except  when  he  endeavoured  to  translate 
into  Austrian  currency  the  income  of  the  Duke  of 
Westminster  for  the  benefit  of  his  first  officer.  I  fancied 
that  I  traced  his  handiwork  in  the  12th  and  last  rule  of 
the  steamship  regulations  which  adorned  the  cabin.  The 
English    version   of  this    remarkable    announcement  ex- 

12 


in    the   Near   East 

pressed  the  belief  that  "  Passengers,  having  a  right  to  be 
treated  like  persons  of  education,  will  no  doubt  conform 
themselves  to  the  rules  of  good  society,  by  respecting 
their  fellow-travellers  and  paying  a  due  regard  to  the 
fair  sex." 

The  steamer  from  Pola  soon  passes  the  southern  point 
of  the  low-lying  Istrian  peninsula,  beyond  which  the  lofty 
peak  of  Cherso,  in  the  gulf  of  the  Quarnero,  is  clearly 
visible,  and  begins  its  voyage  among  the  hundred  islands 
and  islets  which  lie  scattered  along  the  north-east  coast  of 
the  Adriatic.     Lussin-piccolo  is  the  place  at  which  these 
vessels    usually    stop    first — a    fine    harbour    formed    by 
two  arms  of  the  island  of    Lussin.      The  town,  though 
christened  "the  small"  to  distinguish  it  from  Lussin  "the 
great,"  on  the  other  side  of  the  island,  has  now  outgrown 
its  name.     It  has  long  been  an  important  seat  of  the  ship- 
building industry,  and  during  the  last  few  years,  thanks  to 
its  mild  winter  climate,  has  blossomed  out  into  a  fashion- 
able health  resort.     The  presence  of   the  Austrian  heir- 
apparent  here  one  winter  at  once  drew  attention  to  the 
charmsof  the  spot,  and  Lussin-piccolo  is  rapidly  developing 
into  a  Curort,  with  a  Froiidcnlistc,  a  circulating  library,  and 
a   special    German    guide-book,   all    to   itself.       But    the 
visitors,  who    come  to  enjoy   the  balmy  air  of    Lussin- 
piccolo,  must  occasionally  be  English,  for  I  noticed  on 
the  library  shelves  a  copy  of  Sir  Edwin  Arnold's  poems, 
not  just  the  sort  of  reading   which    one    would   expect 
to  find  on  an  island  in  the  Adriatic,  and  a  susceptible 
Austrian  lieutenant  confessed  to  me  that  he  had  lost  his 
heart  to  a  young  English  lady  whom  he  had  met  there. 
Meanwhile,  Lussin  "the  great"  has  remained  stationary, 
and  her  old  V'^enetian  houses  and  battlements  show  that 
her  "  greatness  "  is  of  the  past. 

The    traveller    usually  arrives    at   Zara,  the  capital  of 
Dalmatia  and  the  headquarters  of  the  maraschino  manu- 

13 


Travels   and  Politics 

factiire,  very  early  in  llie  morning,  and  the  arrangement 
is  a  good  one,  as  it  enables  him  to  obtain  his  first  glimpse 
of  a  Dalmatian  coast  town  under  the  most  favourable 
circumstances  ;  for  the  situation  of  Zara,  always  pictur- 
esque, is  seen  to  the  best  advantage  in  the  morning  light, 
and  it  is  then,  too,  that  the  country  folk  come  trooping 
into  the  city  with  their  fowls  and  their  market  produce. 
Built  on  a  narrow  tongue  of  land,  Zara  possesses  two 
harbours,  one  on  either  side  of  the  peninsula,  and  the 
steamers  lie  alongside  the  quay  at  the  foot  of  the  ramparts. 
A  lion  of  St.  Mark  over  the  gateway,  which  leads  into 
the  town,  reminds  the  visitor  at  the  entrance  of  the  seven 
centuries  of  Venetian  domination,  now  gone  for  ever. 
Once  inside  the  gate  you  might  fancy  yourself  in  Venice. 
It  is  true  that  the  "high  walls  and  great  towers"  which 
made  the  Crusaders  exclaim,  "  How  could  such  a  city  be 
taken  unless  our  Lord  Himself  besieged  it  ?"  have  long 
since  crumbled  into  dust,  and  the  later  fortifications,  with 
which  the  famous  Venetian  engineer,  Sammichieli,  sur- 
rounded Zara,  have  been  converted  into  peaceful  pro- 
menades, where  the  natives  take  the  air  in  the  cool  of  the 
day.  But  the  narrow  streets  and  lanes,  the  well-paved 
squares,  and  the  stone  cisterns,  suggest  the  City  of  the 
Lagoons.  When  you  reach  the  Piazza  dei  Signori  you 
might  imagine  yourself  back  in  the  Piazza  di  San  Marco. 
There  is  the  clock  tower,  just  as  at  Venice  ;  there,  too,  is 
the  loggia  with  the  stone  bench,  where  once  the  Venetian 
judges  sat  and  administered  justice,  and  to  complete  the 
comparison,  there,  as  in  Venice,  is  the  principal  cafe  of 
the  city,  where  maraschino  is  served  out  to  you  in 
tumblers,  just  as  if  it  were  taken  from  the  cask.  There 
is  a  touch  of  Venice,  too,  in  the  market-square,  or  Piazza 
deir  Erbe,  where  a  huge  column,  in  ancient  days  a  pillar 
of  Diana's  temple,  surmounted  by  a  broken-winged  lion 
of  St.  Mark,  towers  above  the  stalls  and  the  clatter  of  the 

14 


in  the   Near    East 

market  women,  while  near  its  base  still  swings  in  the 
morning  breeze  the  iron  chain,  which  once  bound  the 
tradesmen  who  could  not  pay  their  debts.  Zara  is  even 
now  the  most  Italian  of  Dalmatian  cities  ;  it  is  there  that 
//  Ddlinata,  the  organ  of  the  Italian  party  in  Dalmatia,  is 
published,  and  the  proportion  of  those  who  speak  Italian 
is  larger  there  than  in  other  places  on  the  coast.  The 
recent  "  discovery "  of  the  Adriatic  towns  by  tourist 
agencies  has  already  had  its  effect  upon  the  trade  of  Zara, 
and  I  noticed  on  my  second  visit,  as  an  evidence  of  this 
increasing  trafhc,  that  elaborately  coloured  postcards, 
containing  pictures  of,  and  greetings  from,  Zara,  had 
within  the  last  two  years  found  a  ready  sale  in  the  shops. 
Indeed,  the  rage  for  these  AusicJitskaiicii  is  now  such, 
that  the  most  obscure  places  in  the  East  seek  to  advertise 
themselves  by  this  means.  Even  in  Crete  and  in  the 
Sandzak  of  Novi-Bazar  I  had  them  thrust  upon  me,  and 
I  shall  not  forget  the  excitement  of  a  small  and  remote 
Bosnian  town,  when  the  first  specimens,  specially  ordered 
by  the  principal  official  of  the  place,  arrived  from  the 
engraver. 

The  weather  was  magnificent,  and  the  sky  and  sea  of 
the  most  azure  blue,  when  we  continued  our  voyage, 
along  the  narrow  channel  of  Zara,  towards  Sebenico  and 
the  South.  We  stopped  on  the  w^ay  at  the  tiny  town  of 
Zara  Vecchia,  noW'  little  more  than  a  fishing  village,  but 
famous  in  Dalmatian  story  as  the  spot  where,  on  the 
threshold  of  the  twelfth  century,  Koloman,  King  of 
Hungary,  had  himself  crowned  King  of  Dalmatia  and 
Croatia — the  commencement  of  the  long  duel  between 
Hungary  and  Venice  for  the  possession  of  this  coast.  A 
little  later  the  Venetians  took  their  revenge  by  burning 
"  the  white  city,"  or  Biograd,  as  it  is  called  in  the 
Croatian  tongue,  and  from  that  day  it  has  never  recovered 
its  ancient  prosperity.     Farther  on  we  anchored  off  the 

15 


Travels   and    Politics 

island  of  Zlarin,  celebrated  for  its  coral  and  sponge 
fisheries,  and  no  less  remarkable  for  the  quaint  costume 
of  its  women.  It  was  curious  to  see  these  ladies  coming 
alongside  the  steamer  with  their  brown  skirts  suspended 
over  their  shoulders  and  gathered  under  their  armpits, 
their  white  handkerchiefs  on  their  heads,  and  huge  ear- 
rings, usually  of  plain  gold,  in  their  ears.  Closer 
examination  disclosed  the  further  marvels  of  their  toilet 
— their  black  or  green  under-bodices,  made  without 
sleeves,  and  slashed  so  as  to  show  a  white  shirt  in  front, 
and  their  girdles  of  red.  Very  picturesque  they  looked, 
as  they  stood  in  the  boats  and  helped  their  husbands, 
while,  as  if  to  compensate  for  this  elaborate  costume,  the 
garb  of  the  small  boys,  who  accompanied  them,  was 
simplicity  itself — nothing  more  than  a  single  piece  of 
cloth,  serving  for  coat  and  trousers  alike,  and  fastened 
down  the  back  with  a  row  of  buttons.  Here,  indeed, 
one  feels  that  one  has  left  the  conventionalities  of  Western 
Europe  far  behind. 

Through  a  narrow  channel,  guarded  jealously  by  an 
old  Venetian  fort,  in  whose  dungeons  political  prisoners 
were  wont  to  languish  in  days  gone  by,  we  entered  the 
bay  of  Sebenico,  next  to  Ragusa  the  most  picturesque  of 
Dalmatian  coast  towns.  On  the  quay  the  host  of  the 
Hotel  Pellegrino  met  us  and  conducted  us  through  quite 
the  most  remarkable  collection  of  passages  that  I  have 
ever  traversed,  to  our  chamber.  We  began  at  the  billiard- 
room,  then  crossed  the  scullery,  passed  by  way  of  the 
pigsties  and  the  pigeon-house,  climbed  a  flight  of  outside 
stairs,  explored  the  lumber-room,  walked  across  a  landing 
containing  a  meat-safe  and  stacks  of  empty  bottles,  in- 
vestigated a  huge  ante-room  full  of  old  chests  and  cup- 
boards, plunged  into  a  short  passage,  and  finally  emerged 
in  a  vast  bedroom  decorated  with  pictures  of  the  Virgin 
and  the  Saints,  and  commanding  a  splendid  view  of  the 

i6 


in    the   Near   East 

bay.     As  our  host  put  it  in  epigmmmatic   Italian, 
approach  was  rrloomy,  but  the  room  very  beautiful. 


"  the 
"     It 


LASA    KU.^SIM,    .sKUii.MCl). 


will    be  seen  from    this    that    the    hotel    at    Sebenico  is 
nothing  if  not  roomy,  and  that  the  traveller  will  not  have 

ry  c 


Travels    and    Politics 

time  to  perform  the  gigantic  journey  to  his  apartment 
more  than  once  a  day.  The  food  was  excellent,  although 
a  commercial  traveller  had  assured  me  on  the  steamer 
that  Sebenico  possessed  only  two  dishes — lamb  with  peas 
and  peas  with  lamb.  But  even  so  it  would  have  been 
ahead  of  many  parts  of  the  Near  East,  where  lamb,  and 
lamb  alone,  is  the  sole  item  in  the  bill  of  fare.  The  wine 
of  the  neighbourhood  is  noted,  and  we  sampled  with 
much  satisfaction  the  red  vintage  known  as  Tartaro,  and 
the  wine  called  locally  maraschino,  which  is  not  to  be 
confounded  with  the  liqueur  of  the  same  name,  but  is 
like  milk-punch  in  colour  and  very  strong.  Wine  costs 
next  to  nothing  in  Dalmatia,  and  the  beer  is  also  good. 
Thus  fortified,  we  set  out  to  see  the  great  sight  of  the 
district — the  Kerka  Falls,  one  of  the  finest  spectacles  of  the 
kind  in  Europe.  The  road  traverses  a  typical  Dalmatian 
landscape — stones,  stones  everywhere  and  not  a  tree  to 
be  seen,  with  the  blue  Adriatic  gleaming  amid  the  grey 
limestone  rocks.  The  only  inhabitants  were  a  few 
shepherds  and  goatherds,  watching  their  flocks,  and 
playing  in  quite  Arcadian  fashion  on  the  bagpipes  or  the 
Pan's  pipe,  and  here  and  there  a  woman,  spinning  as 
she  walked  along  the  road.  Leaving  our  carriage,  we 
struggled  down  a  very  rough  path — inolto  hriitta,  our 
driver  called  it — to  the  mills  at  the  foot  of  the  falls. 
Amidst  luxuriant  vegetation,  rare  indeed  in  this  land  of 
stones,  a  splendid  mass  of  water  comes  rushing  down  the 
rocks  and  gliding  like  a  river  of  glass  over  a  series  of 
steps,  while  the  flakes  of  foam  cover  the  brushwood  on 
either  side.  The  Kerka  Falls  are,  on  a  smaller  scale,  the 
Niagara  of  Europe,  and  will  one  day,  when  Dalmatia  is 
more  generally  known  to  tourists,  bring  in  a  great  profit 
to  the  natives.  Already  the  waterfall  has,  like  Niagara, 
been  used  for  the  generation  of  electricity,  and  it  is 
curious  to  find  so  mediaeval  a  town  as  Sebenico  lighted 

i8 


in   the    Near   East 

by  electric  light,  the  motive  power  of  which  is  derived 
from  the  Kerka.     But  an  even  stranger  contrast  was  that 
between  our  very  European  selves  and  the  five  strapping 
Dalmatians,  all  clad  in  the  national  dress,  who   lent  us 
their  pony  for  the  ride  up  from  the  falls.     The  costume  of 
the  Dalmatians,  physically  one  of  the  finest  races  in  the 
world,   is   nowhere  more  picturesque  than   at  Sebenico, 
unless,  indeed,  at  Ragusa.     Its  most  striking  characteristic 
is  a  very  small,  flat,  red  cap,  with  black  embroidery  at 
the  back  and  fringe  hanging  over  the  edge.     This  bercfto, 
as  it  is  called,  is  fastened  on  the  back  of  the  head  by 
means  of  a  piece  of  elastic,  and  is  so  small  that  it  affords 
absolutely  no   protection    from    the    sun,   which    in    the 
Dalmatian  summer  is  of  a  fiery  heat.     Yet  the  dandies 
of   Sebenico  pride    themselves   on  wearing  the  smallest 
possible  size.     The  Dalmatian  is,  indeed,  a  very  gorgeous 
person,  with  his  string-covered  shoes,  or  opaiikc,  turned 
up  at  the  toes,  his  blue  breeches,  slit  at  the  back  of  the 
leg  so  as  to  display  his  bright-coloured  socks,  with  his 
waistcoat    of   blue,    adorned    with    two    rows    of    silver 
buttons,  and  his  short  hussar's  jacket  of  brown   frieze, 
covered   with   red   fringe   and    barely   hanging    on    his 
shoulders.     A  striped  purse  of  wool,  a  leather  belt,  and  a 
bone-handled  knife  complete  his  costume,  and,  to  make 
it  still    more    theatrical,   the    true   Dalmatian   draws  his 
beloved  blade  at  frequent  intervals  and  whets  it  as  he 
strides  along.     During  our  stay  at  Sebenico  we  saw  the 
natives  in  their  very  best  attire,  for  the   narrow  streets 
were  filled  by  a  procession  of  Orthodox  Serbs,  headed  by 
two  high  ecclesiastical  dignitaries  in  robes  of  blue  and 
yellow,  each  of  the  faithful  carrying  a  long  taper,  which 
was  doled  out  by  a  quaint  old  gentleman.     Nothing  can 
exceed  the  devoutness  of  the  people  here,  for  both  the 
Catholic  and  the  Orthodox  churches  were  crammed  with 
men.     And  Sebenico  affords  an  appropriate,  old-world 

19 


Travels    and    Politics 

background  to  these  gorgeously  apparelled  natives. 
Although  it  is  one  of  the  termini  of  the  solitary  Dalmatian 
railway,  along  which  two  trains  saunter  leisurely  each 
way  every  day,  it  has  not  greatly  altered  since  the  times 
of  the  Venetian  doges,  who  for  more  than  three  centuries 
ruled  over  it.  For  Sebenico  is  essentially  a  Venetian 
town,  although  just  a  hundred  years  have  passed  over  its 
grey  walls  since  the  lion  of  St.  Mark  gave  way  to  the 
double  eagle.  The  lion  is,  indeed,  still  rampant  above 
the  ancient  doorway  in  the  wall  by  which  you  enter  the 
city.  The  quaint  steps  and  vaulted  arch,  or  sottoportico, 
which  confront  you  inside,  are  Italian  ;  the  narrow  streets 
and  handsome  balconies  have  the  unmistakable  mark  of 
Venice  upon  them.  The  magnificent  cathedral,  with 
the  strange  figures  of  Adam  and  Eve  on  either  side 
of  the  doorway,  was  the  work  of  two  Venetian  archi- 
tects ;  and,  hard  by,  the  ancient  palace  of  the  Vene- 
tian governors,  now  converted  into  a  club  and  cafe, 
still  remains  standing.  The  town  is  still  crowned  by 
the  Venetian  fort,  which  the  Turks  in  vain  besieged 
two  and  a  half  centuries  ago.  But  the  population  of 
Sebenico,  as  of  all  Dalmatia,  is  to-day  more  Slav 
than  Italian.  It  is  true  that  the  Italian  party  in 
Dalmatia  is  making  efforts  to  regain  its  lost  supremacy, 
and  receives  a  certain  amount  of  sympathy  from  the 
advanced  newspapers  in  Italy.  This  year,  for  instance, 
the  Italian  Chamber  was  agitated  because  the  Italian 
Consul  at  Spalato  had,  in  his  private  capacity,  subscribed 
to  the  Slav  Society  of  Cyril  and  Methodius,  the  apostles  of 
Christianity  in  the  Balkan  Peninsula,  the  former  of  whom 
has  given  his  name  to  the  Cyrillic  alphabet.  But  the 
whole  Italian  population  of  Dalmatia,  according  to  the 
last  census,  was  only  16,000  out  of  521,117,  while  the 
Serbs  and  Croats  of  the  province  numbered  501,307,  or 
about  96  per  cent,  of  the  whole.     It  is  therefore  in  vain 

2Q 


in  the  Near  East 

that  //  Dahiiata  insists  on  the  restoration  of  the  Italian 
language  to  its  old  predominance.  Under  the  heading  of 
"Our  Demands,"  this  journal  wrote ^  :  "We  demand  the 
autonomy  of  the  province,  and  that  to  the  Italian  nation- 
ality in  Dalmatia  should  be  given,  above  all  in  the  schools, 
the  place  which  belongs  to  it  by  the  right  of  centuries." 
But  the  present  policy  of  Austria  in  Dalmatia  is  to  favour 
the  Slav  element,  which  forms  the  vast  majority  of  the 
population  and  has  become  so  important  to  her  since 
the  occupation  of  Bosnia  and  the  Hercegovina.  But  at 
Sebenico  there  is  considerable  antagonism  between  the 
Slav  and  the  Italian  sections,  for  that  place  was  famous 
for  the  high  degree  of  Italian  culture  to  which  it  attained 
in  Venetian  days.  A  statue  of  one  of  Sebenico's  modern 
men  of  letters,  Nicolo  Tommaseo,  was  ready  to  be  un- 
veiled during  our  stay  there,  and  Italian  is  still  the  most 
useful  language  for  the  traveller,  not  only  there  but  all 
along  the  Dalmatian  coast,  though  German  has  made 
great  headway  at  Kagusa,  owing  to  the  presence  of 
German-speaking  soldiers.  But  the  future  of  these  sea- 
port towns  is  indissolubly  bound  up  with  the  development 
of  the  countries  behind  them,  and  these  countries  are  all 
Slav.  What  is  now  most  wanted  is  an  extension  of  the 
railway  system  in  Dalmatia,  which  is  still  completely 
isolated  from  the  great  lines  of  Europe.  Even  the  single 
railway,  99^  miles  long,  that  the  country  possesses,  which 
runs  from  Spalato  to  Knin,  with  a  branch  to  Sebenico, 
and  which  Austrians  describe  as  a  Sackbahn,  because  it 
goes  nowhere  in  particular,  would  hardly  have  been  made 
if  it  had  not  been  for  the  important  collieries  of  Dernis, 
behind  Sebenico,  whose  brownish  products  cover  the 
quays  of  this  port  whenever  a  steamer  is  due.     There  is 

'  May  g,  1896.  This  paper  appears  twice  a  week.  Two  other  Dalmatian  papers, 
La  Rassegna  Dalmata  and  L'Avvisatore  Dalmato,  are  published  half  in  Italian  and 
half  in  Croatian.  A  German  monthly  periodical,  called  Dalmaticii,  and  published 
at  Vienna,  is  devoted  to  the  commercial  progress  of  the  province. 

21 


Travels  and  Politics  in  the  Near  East 

now,  however,  a  scheme  on  foot  for  extending  this  Hne 
to  Novi  on  the  existing  railway,  which  connects  Bosnia 
with  Croatia,  and  thus  making  a  communication  between 
the  interior  and  the  coast.  Moreover,  the  subsidies 
granted  by  the  Government  to  steamship  agencies  have 
done  much  to  benefit  the  Dahiiatian  ports.  But  so  long 
as  Dalmatia,  separated  from  Bosnia  and  the  Hercegovina, 
remains  a  narrow  strip  of  seaboard,  its  inhabitants  will 
naturally  turn  their  attention  to  the  sea  rather  than  to 
the  development  of  their  country.  The  Dalmatian  Diet 
has,  however,  lately  taken  up  the  railway  question,  re- 
atToresting,  the  establishment  of  a  tobacco  manufactory 
and  an  industrial  school  as  all  urgent  needs  of  the 
province. 

A  few  hours'  voyage  brought  us  to  the  most  exact 
model  of  a  mediaeval  town  that  Dalmatia  has  to  show. 
Trail  is  beautifully  situated  on  an  island,  which  is  con- 
nected by  two  bridges  with  another  island  on  one  side 
and  with  the  mainland  on  the  other.  The  town  itself  is 
completely  walled  in,  and  over  its  hoary  gateways  the 
usual  lion  of  St.  Mark  bears  silent  witness  to  its  former 
masters.  Within,  the  narrowest  of  streets,  arched  here 
and  there,  lead  to  a  piazza,  where  a  still  finer  winged  lion 
at  the  end  of  a  loggia  keeps  guard  over  the  splendid 
cathedral  of  Trau.  To  the  classical  scholar  Trau  is  in- 
teresting, as  having  preserved  that  most  curious  novel 
of  antiquity,  the  "  Trimalchio's  Supper "  of  Petronius 
Arbiter.  But  its  classical  fame  pales  before  that  of  Spalato, 
now,  thanks  to  a  swing-bridge,  but  one  hour's  steam  from 
Trail,  past  a  strip  of  coast  the  most  fertile  in  all  Dalmatia, 
where  the  "  Seven  Castles,"  small  towns  like  the  castclli 
of  the  Roman  Campagna,  peep  out  from  the  refreshing 
verdure  in  a  climate,  the  best  in  Dalmatia,  and  seem  to 
swim  in  the  water.  On  a  height  up  the  country  stands 
out  the  ancient  castle  of  Clissa,  the  key  of  the  old  main 


Travels  and  Politics  in  the  Near  East 

road  into  Bosnia,  which  has  stamped  its  name  in  letters 
of  blood  in  the  stormv  history  of  these  Illyrian  lands. 
And  then  round  a  point  the  town  of  Spalato  comes  into 
view,  the  tower  of  its  cathedral  covered  with  perpetual 
scaffolding — for-  on  both  of  my  visits  it  was  thus  dis- 
figured. Spalato  is  no  longer  entirely  built  inside  the 
famous  Palace  of  Diocletian,  from  which,  by  a  slight 
corruption,  it  derives  its  modern  name.  It  still,  indeed, 
presents  the  unique  spectacle  of  houses,  streets,  and 
churches,  all  massed  together  within  the  walls  of  what 
was  one  vast  imperial  mansion.  But  the  new  town  has 
overfiow'ed  beyond  the  walls,  for  Spalato  is  not  only  the 
largest  town  in  Dalmatia,  but  is  also  rapidly  growing,  and 
has  a  great  future  as  well  as  a  great  past.  Hitherto  it  has 
suffered  from  the  jealousy  of  Hungary,  which  has  re- 
solved at  all  costs  to  prevent  it  from  competing  with  the 
favoured  Hungarian  seaport  of  Fiume.  It  is  for  this 
reason  that  the  Hungarians  have  steadily  opposed  Baron 
von  Kallay's  project  of  uniting  Spalato  by  railway  via 
Arzano  with  the  Bosnian  branch  line,  whose  present 
terminus  is  Bugojno,  and  thus  making  it  the  dcbouchc  of 
the  occupied  territory.  Again  and  again  this  plan  has 
been  brought  forward,  but  Baron  von  Kallay  has  this 
year  been  forced  to  admit  in  a  public  speech  that  it  is  not 
at  present  feasible.  That  there  are  considerable  natural 
difficulties  in  the  way  of  such  a  line  is  true  :  but,  as 
everj'where  in  Dalmatia,  the  political  obstacles  are  more 
serious  than  those  imposed  by  nature.  Once  let  this  line 
be  made,  in  place  of  the  diligence  route  over  Livno, 
which  now  alone  connects  Spalato  with  the  Hiiitcvlaud, 
and  the  town  will  blossom  out  into  considerable  com- 
mercial importance.  Smartly  dressed  men  and  women, 
fine  big  cafes  and  a  theatre,  in  the  auditorium  of  which 
we  took  our  dinner  according  to  a  practice  not  un- 
common in  this  part  of  the  world,  all  attest  the  modern 

24 


Travels   and    Politics 

development  of  Spalato  ;  and,  having  for  centuries 
afforded  material  to  plodding  antiquaries,  it  seems  likely 
to  become,  on  a  smaller  scale,  a  Dalmatian  Trieste. 

Winding  about  from  the  islands  to  the  mainland  and 
from  the  mainland  to  the  islands,  we  pass  Brazza,  famous 
for  its  wine,  and  Almissa's  ruined  castle,  once  the  boundary 
line  betw^een  the  two  Slav  tribes  of  Croats  and  Serbs  in 
the  early  days  of  Dalmatian  history,  and  later  the  abode 
of  the  most  dreaded  pirates  of  the  whole  Illyrian  coast. 
High  among  the  mountains  behind  Almissa  there  existed, 
till  the  early  years  of  the  present  century,  the  quaint 
Highland  Republic  of  Poljica,  which  has  been  styled  the 
"  Illyrian  San  Marino."  But,  unlike  the  small  Appennine 
Commonwealth,^  which  still  lingers  on  within  the  boun- 
daries of  United  Italy,  Poljica  has  disappeared  as  a  separate 
State  from  the  map.  The  great  French  Emperor,  who 
"bade  spare"  San  Marino,  that  it  might  remain  "a 
pattern  of  a  Republic,"  swept  away  Poljica  in  a  moment, 
and  thus  destroyed  one  of  the  most  picturesque  ana- 
chronisms of  these  South  Slavonic  lands  which  Austria 
had  tolerated.  But  a  much  more  important  and  inte- 
resting Republic  perished  at  the  same  time  and  by  the  same 
hands.  Ragusa  is,  from  every  point  of  view — from  that  of 
history,  that  of  art,  and  that  of  natural  beauty — the  gem 
of  the  Dalmatian  coast,  and  Ragusa  lost  her  Republican 
liberties  at  Napoleon's  command.  There  is  preserved  in 
the  Ragusan  archives  a  complete  list  of  the  Republican 
magistrates  down  to  the  year  1808,  when  the  French 
forces  put  an  end  to  Ragusan  independence.  Much  that 
could  have  thrown  light  on  the  secret  story  of  the  Re- 
public's past — and  in  powers  of  intrigue  the  Ragusans  were 
not  inferior  to  their  dreaded  Venetian  rivals — has  perished 
in  the  flames,  to  which,  on  the  approach   of  the  French, 

'  Perhaps   I   may  be  allowed  to  refer  to  an  account  of  San  Marino,  whicli   I 
wrote  in  the  Manorial  Diploinatiqnc  of  December  8  and  15,  1894. 

26 


in    the   Near    East 

the  conscript  fathers  committed  their  most  compromising 
records.  But  across  the  history  of  the  Balkan  Peninsula 
the  name  of  Ragusa  is  written  in  letters,  not  of  blood, 
like  that  of  most  Balkan  States,  but  of  gold.  For  the 
Ragusans  were  the  great  traders  of  the  Near  East  in  days 
gone  by.  Their  "argosies" — said  to  derive  their  name 
from  the  city  which  sent  them  forth — were  in  every  sea  ; 
their  agents  were  in  every  corner  of  the  land,  and  their 
lives  and  liberties  were  guaranteed  wherever  they  went. 
Rough  Bosnian  kings  and  proud  Servian  tsars  sued  for 
their  friendship  in  return  for  mining  concessions,  and 
"the  most  favoured  nation  clause"  of  modern  commer- 
cial treaties  finds  an  early  parallel  in  the  exceptional 
trading  facilities  accorded  to  them.  The  great  earthquake 
of  the  seventeenth  century,  the  memory  of  which  still 
terrifies  the  citizens  of  Ragusa  whenever  a  quiver  shakes 
the  white  Dalmatian  mountains  or  the  trim  capital  of 
Carniola,  is  usually  ascribed  as  the  cause  of  the  city's 
decay,  though  I  am  told  by  the  highest  local  authority^ 
that  the  destruction  wrought  by  that  awful  calamity  was 
less  serious  than  has  been  commonly  supposed.  Masses 
are  still  sung  in  commemoration  of  it,  and  a  friend  of 
mine  once  brought  all  the  inhabitants  into  the  streets 
by  telling  them  that  an  earthquake  was  expected.  But 
despite  the  ravages  of  these  shocks,  even  now,  the  streets 
and  gates  and  walls  of  Ragusa  bear  witness  to  its  splendid 
past.  To  me  no  town  in  the  whole  East  of  Europe  is  so 
fascinating  as  this.  Against  its  rocky  coast  the  bright 
blue  waves  are  ever  beating,  and  I  could  well  understand 
the  patriotic  enthusiasm  of  a  much-travelled  Ragusan 
officer  who,  after  describing  the  beautiful  places  that  he 
had  seen  in  the  course  of  his  travels,  exclaimed,  "  Abcr 
mein  Meer  gebe  ich  iiicJit  niif!"     Ragusa  enjoys,  too,  as 

'  Prof.    G.  Gelcic,   whose  book.  Dcllo  S^'iliippo   Civile   di  Ragusa,  is  a   mine  of 
information  about  Ragusa's  art  treasures. 

27 


Travels  and  Politics  in  the  Near  East 

its  Slav  name  ot  Dubrovnik,  or  "  the  place  of  oaks," 
implies,  a  vegetation  rare  in  stony  Dalmatia.  Inside  the 
gates  the  pigeons  and  the  swallows  are  flying  about  by 
hundreds,  and  the  market-square  is  alive  with  people, 
clad  in  the  most  picturesque  of  costumes.  I  used  to  rise 
every  morning  at  daybreak  at  Ragusa  to  watcli  the 
peasants  in  their  national  garb  come  into  this  square  to  do 
their  marketing.  Close  as  is  Ragusa  to  the  Hercegovinian 
frontier,  it  naturally  attracts  the  natives  of  that  old  Turkish 
province,  where,  more  than  in  any  other  part  of  the  Near 
East,  artistic  dress  has  held  its  own  against  the  hideous 
products  of  the  slop-shop,  with  which  the  emancipated 
Oriental  too  often  seeks  to  disguise  his  splendid  physique. 
The  women  from  the  Hercegovina  in  long,  dark  coats, 
scarlet  fezes  with  a  flower  behind  one  ear  and  white  veils 
streaming  down  their  backs  may  here  be  seen  buying 
vegetables  and  then  trudging  off  in  their  thick  felt  leg- 
gings, despite  the  summer  heat.  But  they  by  no  means 
monopolise  the  artistic  treasures  of  this  piazza. 

There  are  other  women  from  the  valley  of  Canali  on 
the  road  to  Cattaro,  who  vie  with  their  Hercegovinian 
sisters  in  tiie  picturesqueness  of  their  headgear — a 
pleated  white  handkerchief,  contrasting  pleasantly  with 
the  scarlet  and  orange  colours  with  which  the  Ragusan 
dames  love  to  cover  their  hair.  The  men,  too,  are 
resplendent  in  blue  and  crimson,  which  show  off  to  the 
utmost  advantage  their  magnificent  stature.  The  figure 
of  the  hero  Orlando,  which  here,  as  at  Bremen,  adorns 
the  town,  might  well  have  been  moulded  on  that  of 
some  stalwart  Dalmatian.  But  the  glories  of  Orlando, 
and  even  the  restoration  of  his  sword  some  twenty  years 
ago,  are  eclipsed  by  the  greater  fame  of  San  Biagio — the 
St.  Blazey  of  our  own  Cornwall — who  has  been  in  all  ages 
the  patron  saint  of  Ragusa.  If  Orlando  had  the  privilege 
of  supporting  the  standard  of  the  Republic,  if  the  traders  of 

28 


Travels  and  Politics  in  the  Near  East 

old  converted  his  right  arm  from  the  elbow  to  the  wrist 
into  a  measure,  once  known  all  over  the  Balkan  as  the 
braccio  mgiisco,  or  "  Ragiisan  arm,"  it  was  reserved  for 
San  Biagio  to  hold  the  city  of  Ragusa  in  the  hollow  of 
his  left  hand.  Thus  holding  his  beloved  town,  the  saint  in 
silver  gazes  at  the  visitor  to  his  church,  while  from  many 
a  niche  in  the  city  walls  his  figure  in  stone  looks  down 
serenely  on  the  modern  fortunes  of  his  chosen  people.  Go 
into  the  old  Palace  of  the  Rector,  the  Government  House 
of  the  Ragusan  Republic,  and  you  expect  to  see  a  group 
of  mediaeval  senators  descending  the  stairs  into  the  court- 
yard. But  here  all  is  still,  and  there  is  nothing  save  a 
silent  statue — that  of  a  shrewd  Ragusan  corn  merchant, 
who  saved  his  city  from  the  anger  of  a  mediaeval  emperor, 
and  asked  as  his  sole  reward  not  riches,  for  he  possessed 
them  already,  not  honours,  for  none  was  higher  than 
that  of  Ragusan  citizenship,  but  the  towel  which  the 
monarch  had  tucked  beneath  his  half-shaved,  half-soaped 
chin.  Out  in  the  main  street,  where  every  house  stands 
detached  as  a  precaution  against  another  earthquake, 
or  up  in  the  steep  alleys  with  their  rows  of  steps,  one 
seems  in  Italy,  were  it  not  for  the  colour  of  the  dress 
and  the  Croatian  names  over  the  shops.  On  an  old  door 
you  may  still  see  one  of  those  iron  knockers,  of  which 
the  Ragusan  patricians  were  so  proud,  and  which  a 
travelling  Englishman  once  carried  oft  and  hung  on  his 
London  mansion,  there  to  be  recognised  by  the  rightful 
owner.  Ragusa  is,  indeed,  essentially  a  Slav  town,  and 
the  proportion  of  Slavs  to  other  nationalities  there  is  four 
to  one.  Her  admirers  have  sometimes  called  her  the 
"  South  Slavonic  Athens,"  and  in  some  respects  the  title 
is  deserved.  For  here  arose  the  "  Ragusan  school " 
of  poetr}'',  whose  best  representative,  Gundulic,  early 
preached  the  independence  and  unity  of  the  Slavs,  in  his 
epic,  Osinan,  scenes  from  which  now  adorn  his  statue  in 

30 


Travels   and   Politics 

the  market-place.  At  no  time,  I  am  told,  was  Slav  the  official 
language  of  the  Republic,  which  used  sometimes  Latin 
and  sometimes  Italian  in  its  state  papers,  and  had  even 
to  employ  a  Slav  interpreter  on  an  emergency,  as  one 
volume  of  the  Kagusan  records  shows.  But,  though  the 
best  Ragusan  families,  some  of  whom  still  pride  them- 
selves on  their  patrician  origin,  can  still  speak  Italian,  the 
names  of  the  streets  are  now  put  up  in  Slav  alone,  and 
that  is  the  tongue  of  the  vast  majority  of  the  people. 
Small,  indeed,  as  Ragusa  is — at  the  last  census  it  numbered 
11,177  ^<'Lils — it  possesses  the  dubious  advantage  of 
three  separate  clubs,  the  Italian,  the  Croatian,  and  the 
Serb,  each  representative  of  the  three  sections  into  which 
Dalmatia  is  unhappily  divided.  While  the  Italians  and 
the  Croats  have  the  same  Catholic  religion  but  different 
languages  yet  the  same  alphabet,  the  Croats  and  the  Serbs 
have  practically  the  same  language,  except  for  the  fact 
that  the  Croats  emplo}^  the  Latin  and  the  Serbs  the 
Cyrillic  character,  but  in  religion  are  separated  by  the  wide 
chasm  which  keeps  the  Roman  and  the  Orthodox  Greek 
Church  asunder,  and  which  in  South-eastern  Europe  has 
been  one  of  the  greatest  drawbacks  to  national  unity.  As 
in  the  East  ties  of  religion  count  for  more  than  anything 
else,  the  Dalmatian  Serbs  are  apt  to  be  drawn  towards  the 
independent  Serb  communities  outside  the  boundaries  of 
the  Monarchy.  Ragusa  received  many  a  Bosnian  exile 
when  the  old  Bosnian  kingdom  fell  before  the  Turks  ; 
during  the  insurrection  in  the  Hercegovina  in  1875  she 
was  the  headquarters  of  the  insurgents,  and  the  eyes  of 
Prince  Nicholas  of  Montenegro  are  still  directed  at 
times  towards  the  city,  which  ninety-five  years  ago  his 
people,  with  their  Russian  allies,  besieged.  The  Ragusan 
newspaper,  Dubroviiik,  does  not  hesitate  to  foster  this 
feeling,  and  during  my  visit  published  letters  from  a 
correspondent  at  Mostar  which  were  intended  to  be  as 

32 


in  the  Near  East 

distasteful  as  possible  to  the  Austrian  Government  in  the 
Hercegovina.  A  Ragusan,  too,  who  had  gone  to  Niksic, 
in  Montenegro,  lately  founded  a  Serb  paper  with  the 
ominous  title  of  Nevesinje — the  place  in  the  Hercegovina 
where  the  insurrection  of  1875  first  broke  out — for  the 
purpose  of  fomenting  a  Montenegrin  agitation  in  the 
occupied  territory.  The  fate  of  this  paper  was,  as  I 
anticipated  when  I  saw  a  copy,  to  be  excluded  from  the 
Austrian  post-office.^  It  is  amusing,  too,  to  notice  on  the 
drop-scene  of  the  theatre  at  Cetinje  a  picture  of  Ragusa, 
so  that  after  a  performance  of  the  Prince's  political 
drama,  the  Balkanska  Carica,  or  Empress  of  the  Balkans, 
the  curtain  may  fall  and  display  the  "  South  Slavonic 
Athens"  to  the  applauding  mountaineers.  The  thoughts 
of  the  Croatian  party  in  Dalmatia,  on  the  other  hand,  are 
turned  towards  Agram  rather  than  towards  Cetinje.  At 
present  Dalmatia  sends  deputies  to  the  Austrian  Reichs- 
rath  and  has  a  diet  of  its  own  for  provincial  affairs, 
which  meets  at  Zara.  But  the  Croats  desire  the  complete 
amalgamation  of  Dalmatia  with  Croatia,  which  at  present 
enjoys  a  large  measure  of  Home  Rule  from  Hungary,  and 
has  a  provincial  assembly  of  its  own  at  Agram.  Just 
before  I  visited  the  Croatian  capital  a  learned  professor  of 
Agram  had  made  some  sensation  by  demonstrating  the 
historical  rights  of  the  old  kingdom  of  Croatia  over 
Dalmatia.  As  we  have  seen,  Koloman,  King  of  Hungary, 
united  both  Croatia  and  Dalmatia  under  his  sceptre  in 
1 102,  and  before  that  date  the  Croatian  rulers  had,  under 
one  title  or  another,  exercised  power  over  the  Dalmatian 
people.  Another  section  of  public  opinion  at  Ragusa  is  in 
favour  of  reviving  the  Republic— an  idea  which  is  almost 
as  unpractical  as  the  dream  of  a  great  Serb  Empire.     The 


'  A  similar  fate  has  befallen  a  violently  anti-Austrian  book,  Le  Balkan  slave  ci 
la  crise  aiiMchieinie,  lately  written  at  Ragusa  by  M.  Loiseau,  brother-in-law  of  the 
Prince  of^Montenegro's  private  secretary. 

33  ^ 


Travels   and   Politics 

most  probable,  and  also  the  most  practical,  solution  of 
these  questions  is  the  ultimate  amalgamation  of  Dalmatia 
with  the  occupied  territory  behind  it.  Until  1878  it  was 
geographically  isolated,  except  where  it  bordered  on 
Croatia  in  the  north,  from  the  rest  of  the  Monarchy,  and 
was  regarded,  as  an  Austrian  official  once  put  it  to  me,  in 
the  light  of  a  "  transmarine  colony."  The  famous  visit 
of  the  Emperor  Francis  Joseph  to  Dalmatia  in  1874,  of 
which  the  Ragusans  still  talk,  was,  however,  a  new  de- 
parture, and  now,  with  the  occupation  of  Bosnia  and  the 
Hercegovina,  Dalmatia  is  no  longer,  in  Mr.  Paton's  classic 
phrase,  "  a  face  without  a  head,"  and  Bosnia  and  the 
Hercegovina  "a  head  without  a  face."  More  especially 
will  this  be  the  case  when  the  new  railway,  now  in  course 
of  construction  from  Gabela,  the  next  station  to  Metkovic 
on  the  Metkovic — Mostar  line,  to  Castelnuovo  at  the 
entrance  of  the  Bocche  di  Cattaro — is  finished.  This 
railway,  which  is  primarily  intended  for  military  purposes, 
and,  like  the  Bosnian  line,  will  be  of  a  small  gauge,  will 
pass  by  Ragusa,  and  a  branch  is  to  be  made  from  the 
Ragusan  port  of  Gravosa  to  Trebinje  in  the  Hercegovina, 
which  is  a  most  important  military  point.  It  is  a  curious 
example  of  history  repeating  itself,  that  the  outlet  of  this 
line  should  be  at  Castelnuovo,  for  that  was  the  spot  where 
Tvrtko  I., I  the  first  and  greatest  of  Bosnian  kings, 
founded  in  the  latter  half  of  the  fourteenth  century  a 
town,  which  he  intended  to  be  the  harbour  of  the  whole 
interior.  Under  him  and  his  predecessor,  Stephen 
Kotromanic,  Bosnia  had  for  the  first  time  a  coast-line, 
and  Tvrtko  even  added  the  style  of  King  of  Dalmatia  to 
his  other  titles.  But  at  his  death  this  brief  union  of 
Dalmatia  and  Bosnia  was  quickly  severed,  and  though 
Hrvoje,  the  great  Bosnian  king-maker  of  the  early  part 

'  For  a  detailed  account  of  this  I  may  refer  to  my  article,  "  Bosnia  before  the 
Turkish  Conquest,"  in  Tlic  English  Historical  Review,  for  October,  1898. 

34 


in   the   Near   East 

of  the  fifteenth  century,  extended  his  authority  over  parts 
of  the  coast  and  some  of  the  islands,  it  was  not  till  the 
present  generation  that  Dalmatia  belonged  to  the  same  de 
facto  master  as  the  lands  behind  it.     At  two  points  alone, 
one  in  the    Sutorina  at  the  entrance  of   the  Bocche  di 
Cattaro,  the  other  at  the  harbour  of  Neum  behind  the 
long    peninsula    of    Sabioncello,    did    the    jealousy    of 
Ragusa  cede  outlets  on  the  sea  to  the  Turkish  rulers  of 
the  Hercegovina,  so  that   the    confines  of   the  Ragusan 
Republic  might  not  march  with  those  of  her  Venetian 
rival.      But   the   new  railway,   when    completed,   should 
have  other  than  purely  military  uses.     Connected  for  the 
first  time  with  the  railway  system  of  the  Monarchy  by 
way  of   Bosnia,  Ragusa  will   then  be  able  to  derive  far 
greater  benefit  from  those  gifts  which  nature  has  lavished 
on   her.     The  heir-apparent  to  the  Austrian  throne  re- 
marked last  summer  to  a  Dalmatian   deputation,  which 
waited    upon    him,    that    the    natural    beauties    of    the 
Austrian  Riviera  were  superior  to  those  of  the  French, 
but   hitherto    they   have    been    strangely    ignored.      The 
surroundings  of  Ragusa  are,  indeed,   delightful.      Here, 
almost  alone  in  Dalmatia,  rich  southern  vegetation,  the 
palm,  the  cactus,  and  the  aloe  may  be  seen  flourishing 
luxuriantly.    Take  a  boat  across  to  the  island  of  Lacroma, 
where  our  own  Coeur-de-Lion,  according  to  tradition,  was 
shipwrecked  on  his  return  from  the  Crusades  and  vowed 
to   erect  a    monastery    in   gratitude  for  his    deliverance. 
Among    the    charming    gardens     of     the     Dominican 
brothers,   which  a  single  gardener  keeps  in    artistic  dis- 
order, the  unfortunate  Emperor  Maximilian  used  to  wander 
before  he  was  tempted  with  the  ofi^er  of   the   Mexican 
throne,  and  in  the  cells,  which  he  occupied  as  his  apart- 
ments, a  number  of  his  English  pictures  still  recall  his 
memory.     Here,   too,  another   ill-starred   Hapsburg,  the 
late  Archduke  Rudolph,  loved  to  stay,  and  his  pet  dog, 

35 


Travels  and   Politics 

now  old  and  grey,  greeted  us  as  we  strolled  through  the 
gardens  with  one  of  the  monks.  The  loggia  at  the  top  of 
the  monastery  with  its  superb  views  on  all  sides  might 
well  attract  the  Archduke's  widow,  who  often  makes 
Lacroma  her  temporary  home,  and  the  two  Dominicans, 
who  live  here  and  keep  a  school,  are,  indeed,  to  be 
envied.  A  "  dead  sea,"  into  which  the  salt  water  enters 
by  a  subterranean  passage,  while  in  winter,  chafing 
against  this  narrow  entrance,  it  dashes  right  over  the 
rocks  into  the  basin  below,  completes  the  wonders  of 
Lacroma.  For  the  quiet  exercise  of  religious  duties  no 
spot  could  be  better  suited  ;  for  the  world-wearied 
monarch,  the  scholar,  or  the  monk,  it  should  be  a  happy 
isle.  Or  ask  your  boatman  to  row  you  up  the  valley  of  the 
Ombla,  past  a  deserted  cloister  with  a  garden  straggling 
down  to  the  stream,  to  the  mills,  where  the  waters  issues 
from  beneath  a  great  rock  and  the  ground  is  strewn  with 
mulberries  white  and  purple.  Or,  in  the  evening,  walk  out 
to  San  Giacomo,  another  of  these  mouldering  monasteries, 
and  enjoy  the  view  back  over  Ragusa's  rocky  peninsula, 
where  bastions  and  turrets  stand  out  in  the  bright  sun- 
light. Here,  one  feels  sure,  will  be  one  of  the  winter 
resorts  of  the  future  ;  here,  already,  a  big  hotel  has  sprung 
up  since  my  first  visit,  and  quick  steamers  are  doing  their 
best  to  bring  visitors  from  Fivmie,  and  Pola  and  Trieste. 

But  Dalmatia  has  one  further  treat  in  store  for  the 
lover  of  nature.  No  fiord  that  I  have  seen  can  compare 
with  the  Bocche  di  Cattaro,  that  magnificent  haven,  or 
rather  series  of  havens,  where  all  the  navies  of  the  world 
could  easily  lie  at  anchor.  Austria  has,  indeed,  fully 
recognised  the  value  of  this  coveted  possession,  for  which 
in  the  past  so  many  nationalities  have  striven,  and  which 
is  being  developed  by  art  into  an  even  stronger  position 
than  it  is  by  nature,  for  a  mole  is  to  be  constructed  across 
the  mouth,  and   3,000,000  gulden   figured   in  this  year's 

36 


in   the   Near   East 

estimates  for  fortifications  here.^  When  one  enters  the 
gulf,  Austrian  forts  are  visible  on  either  hand,  as  well  as 
on  the  little  island  in  the  middle  of  the  entrance.  The 
walls  of  Castelnuovo's  castle,  no  longer  "  new,"  next  rise 
to  the  left  in  a  climate  where  soon  invalids  will  come  to 
winter.  As  one  penetrates  farther  within  the  recesses  of 
the  gulf,  one  sees  a  flotilla  of  Austrian  men-of-war  and 
torpedo-boats  lying  at  anchor  in  the  lovely  bay  of  Teodo, 
and  commanding  the  zigzag  road  which  scales  the 
frowning   cliffs   of    the    Black    Mountain.      Virgil    must 


CAMELNL  e)Vli. 
{From  a  Photo,  by  Miss  Cliadwick.) 

have  been  thinking  of  some  such  series  of  winding 
gulfs  and  bays  and  channels  when  he  wrote  the  lines  : 

"Illyricos  penetrarc  sinus  atquc  intima  tutus 
Regna  Liburnorum." 

In  one  place  the  passage  is  so  narrow  that  in  olden  times 
chains  were  stretched  across  it,  btit  no  sooner  is  the  strait 
passed  than  another  large  sheet  of  water  opens  out  before 

'  An  officer  of  engineers  is  said  to  have  been  arrested  two  montlis  ago  on  a 
charge  of  having  sold  the  plans  to  Russia  for  a  large  sum. 

37 


Travels  and  Politics  in  the  Near  East 

one's  eyes,  with  Risano,  the  oldest  town  of  the  Bocche, 
to  which  in  Roman  times  it  gave  its  name,  and  the  chief 
debonche  of  Montenegrin  trade,  at  the  end  of  it.  To  the 
right  of  two  fairy  islands,  each  with  a  church  upon  it, 
to  which  the  faithful  go  on  pilgrimage,  a  splendid  bay 
extends  up  to  the  quay  of  Cattaro,  nestling  at  the  foot 
of  the  Montenegrin  mountains.  Along  the  shores  on 
either  side  of  the  Bocche  are  pleasant  hamlets  with  sweet- 
sounding  names,  the  home  of  the  ships'  captains;  and  I 
shall  never  forget  how  once,  when  I  entered  the  Bocche 
with  a  favourite  captain,  many  a  handkerchief  waved 
from  the  white  villages  which  peeped  out  from  the  trees 
as  the  popular  commander  saluted  his  friends  and  rela- 
tives from  the  bridge.  On  high-days  and  holidays  the 
Boccliesi  still  appear  resplendent  in  their  crimson  gar- 
ments, but  at  Cattaro  costume  has  almost  disappeared 
from  the  ancient  streets  and  squares,  save  where  outside 
the  walls  a  Montenegrin  stalks  along  on  his  way  to 
the  market.  Nowadays,  Cattaro  is  essentially  a  place  of 
arms,  and  within  its  quaint  old  Venetian  ramparts,  on 
which  the  lion  of  St.  Mark  still  keeps  watch,  there  are 
swarms  of  military  and  naval  men.  For  this  is  the 
Austro-Montenegrin,  or  in  other  words,  Austro-Russian 
frontier,  and  it  accordingly  behoves  Austria  to  keep  con- 
stant guard  at  this  extreme  point  of  the  empire.  For 
one  brief  moment,  in  1813,  Cattaro  was  actually  united 
with  Montenegro,  whose  people  had  captiu^ed  it  with  the 
aid  of  a  British  squadron.  But  Russia  compelled  her 
"little  brothers"  to  hand  over  the  haven  to  Austria — an 
event  which  is  sometimes  forgotten  by  those  who 
reproach  the  Austrians  for  having  taken  Spizza.  The 
first  time  that  I  arrived  in  Cattaro  I,  indeed,  thoroughly 
appreciated,  after  an  experience  of  the  Albanian  coast- 
towns,  the  remark  of  a  Turkish  official  with  whom  I  was 
travelling  :  "  I'AiitricJic,  c'est  le  couuncnccmciit  de  la  civdi- 

3« 


Travels  and  Politics  in  the  Near  East 

sdtioii."  Cattaro,  with  its  fine,  spacious  quay,  its  old 
Venetian  buildings,  and  its  public  garden,  where  the  band 
plays  in  the  evening,  strikes  one  as  civilised  indeed  after 
the  squalid  shanties  and  rickety  landing-stages  of  the 
harbours  over  which  the  Turkish  flag  still  flies  ;  and  if 
the  food  is  not  up  to  the  usual  Dalmatian  standard  one 
feels  here  that  one  is  in  Europe.  Here  and  there  an 
ancient  house  with  its  finely-carved  balcony  reminds  one 
of  the  Venetian  palaces,  or  the  statue  of  a  mailed  warrior 
in  a  courtyard  takes  you  back  to  the  days  of  Cattaro's 
many  sieges.  High  above  the  tow'n,  at  the  apex  of  the 
triangle  formed  by  the  walls,  stands  the  old  citadel, 
perched  on  a  spur  of  the  grey  mountain,  which 
seems  to  push  the  little  town  into  the  gulf  at  its 
foot.  Shut  in  by  impenetrable  walls  of  rock,  Cattaro 
is  moved  by  no  breath  of  air,  and  in  the  hot  summer 
days  the  temperature  is  terrible.  But  the  situation  is 
unique  in  South-eastern  Europe,  and  in  sublime  grandeur 
would  be  difficult  to  surpass  an3^where.  No  photographer 
can  do  justice  to  the  charms  of  Cattaro  and  her  fiords ; 
but  those  who  have  once  sailed  through  them  beneath  the 
shadow^  of  the  tall  cliffs,  where  the  Austrian  and  the 
Montenegrin  eagles  meet,  will  not  soon  forget  the  scene. 


40 


CHAPTER    II 

A   PATRIARCHAL   PRIXCIPALITY  :    MONTENEGRO 

LT  NTIL  the  marriage  of  Princess  Helena  of  Monte- 
^  negro  and  the  future  King  of  Italy  two  years 
ago  the  European  public  knew  little,  and  cared  less, 
about  the  Highland  Principality  which  for  live  centuries 
had  maintained  its  independence  against  the  Turks. 
Well-educated  people  in  London  drawing-rooms  have 
asked  me  whether  Cetinje  was  not  the  capital  of 
Bulgaria,  and  whether  the  Montenegrins  were  not 
blacks.  The  reason  of  this  indifiference  was  partly 
the  isolated  position  of  the  country  and  partly  the 
fact  that,  alone  among  Balkan  States,  the  Black 
Mountain  possessed  no  professional  newspaper  corre- 
spondents, except  one  laconic  individual,  whose  tele- 
grams were  of  the  shortest  and  most  concise  character. 
A  Balkan  statesman  once  observed  that  happy  was 
the  Balkan  State,  where  journalists  were  unknown,  and 
this  form  of  happiness  was  for  a  long  tune  almost 
monopolised  by  Montenegro.  One  otttcial  journal,  the 
Glas  Cniogorca,  or  J^oice  of  the  Black  Moitutaiii,  expressed 
the  opinions  of  the  Prince  upon  the  affairs  of  the  day,  and 
obtained  a  limited  circulation  in  the  Slav  districts  of  the 
Monarchy.  But  until  the  Prince  of  Naples  wooed  and 
won  the  beautiful  Princess,  Montenegro,  despite  her  past 
military  glories  and  her  almost  unique  form  of  govern- 
ment, was  left  to  blush  unseen,  save  by  a  few  travellers 
and  a  handful  of  diplomatists.     Indeed,  when  I  first  went 

41 


Travels   and   Politics 

to  Cetinje,  several  of  the  latter,  although  they  were 
accredited  to  the  court  of  Montenegro,  resided  at  Ragusa, 
preferring  the  civilisation  of  the  "South  Slavonic  Athens  " 
to  the  Spartan  simplicity  of  the  Montenegrin  capital. 
But  when  the  news  of  the  Italian  marriage  took  Europe 
by  surprise,  immense  interest  was  suddenly  displayed  in 
this  little  Principality.  Italian  journalists  visited  Monte- 
negro in  swarms,  German  photographers  found  the 
Prince  and  his  people  most  artistic  subjects,  and 
tourists  from  all  lands  discovered,  to  their  surprise, 
that  the  Near  East  is  not  quite  so  dangerous  as  many 
European  capitals.  Montenegro,  in  fact,  awoke  one 
day  to  find  herself  famous,  and,  so  far  as  notoriety  is 
concerned,  the  marriage  of  Princess  Helena,  followed 
by  that  of  Princess  Anna  to  Prince  PVancis  Joseph  of 
Battenberg,  has  done  more  for  the  country  than  all 
the  brave   deeds    of   this   nation    of  warriors. 

A  change  has  naturally  came  over  Montenegro  since  she 
suddenly  became  of  interest  to  Europe.  When  I  revisited 
Cetinje  this  year,  I  was  struck  by  the  alterations  in  the 
place.  I  do  not  mean  mere  agglomerations  of  new 
houses,  although  in  the  last  four  years  the  little  capital 
has  increased  by  about  a  third.  Now  there  are  more 
churches  than  ever,  to  the  great  delight  of  the  Prince, 
who  tells  you  with  pride  that  his  country  possesses  more 
churches  in  proportion  to  its  population  than  "  holy 
Russia "  herself — the  standard  by  which,  in  Monte- 
negro, everything  is  measured.  Now,  too,  all  the 
foreign  representatives,  whose  number  has  been 
increased  by  the  arrival  of  Greek,  Bulgarian,  and 
Servian  agents,  live  on  the  spot  and  in  houses  of 
their  own,  so  that  the  "  diplomatic  table "  in  the 
spacious  upper  room  of  the  "Grand  Hotel,"  where 
once  European  ministers  and  Montenegrin  senators 
used    to    take    their    meals,    is    abandoned    to     young 

42 


in   the   Near    East 

Prince  Mirko's  Swiss  tutor — one  of  the  standing 
institutions  of  Cetinje.  The  Crown  Prince  has  now 
a  separate  estabhshment  of  his  own,  where  he  hves 
in  state  such  as  no  Montenegrin  heir-apparent  has 
enjoyed  before,  and  a  mausoleum  for  the  founder  of 
the  dynasty,  erected  on  the  occasion  of  the  Bicen- 
tenary, and  inaugurated  hist  year,  crowns  the  summit 
of  the  Orlof^",  or  "Eagle"  Hill,  whence  the  Turkish 
soldiers  fired  on  the  Montenegrin  cattle,  and  so  kindled 
the  desire  to  be  done  with  the  Turks  for  ever.  But  the 
changes  which  one  notices  most  are  not  expressed  by 
stones  and  monuments.  One  sees  that  Montenegro  has 
reached  that  critical  point  at  which  most  States  of  the 
Near  East  sooner  or  later  arrive,  when  contact  with 
"  Europe  "  and  "  European  "  ideas  begins  to  shake  the 
inborn  conservatism  and  primitive  faith  of  a  nation. 

Prince  Nicholas,  even  by  the  admission  of  his  severest 
critics  the  ablest  of  Balkan  sovereigns,  has  hitherto 
solved  the  problem  of  reconciling  the  old  order  with  the 
new,  and  so  long  as  he  lives  Montenegro  will  go  on  in 
the  way  which  he  has  so  ably  marked  out  for  her  develop- 
ment. The  Gospodar,  or  "  Lord,"  as  his  people  call  him, 
is,  indeed,  one  of  the  most  remarkable  men  of  the  day. 
He  combines  two  qualities  usually  considered  incom- 
patible— that  of  great  practical  common  sense  and  that  of 
a  poet  by  the  grace  of  God.  No  one  can  understand  his 
character,  and  therefore  the  policy  of  his  country,  which 
entirely  depends  upon  his  will,  without  taking  both  of 
these  characteristics  into  consideration.  The  Prince 
most  emphatically  knows  on  which  side  his  bread  is 
buttered,  and  his  public  acts  are  carefully  calculated 
towards  the  improvement  of  his  political  position.  If 
Russia  offers  him,  as  she  has  twice  lately  done,  a  ship- 
load of  rifles  and  other  materials  of  war,  he  thankfully 
accepts  the  gift,  without  greatly  fearing  the  givers.     If 

43 


Travels   and   Politics 

Austria — that  Austria  whom  he  fears  and  hates  so  much — 
provides  him  with  subsidies  for  his  roads  and  for  the 
pubhc  diHgence,  which  now  carries  the  mails  and 
passengers  over  them,  he  carries  out  the  bibhcal 
precept  of  "  spoiHng  the  Egyptians."  When  his  old 
enemy,  the  Sultan,  sends  him  cavalry  instructors  with 
characteristic  sense  of  humour — for  cavalry  is  useless 
in  Montenegro — or  promises  him  a  yacht,  which  he 
cannot  afford  to  keep  up,  he  couches  a  letter  of 
thanks  in  that  diplomatic  language  of  which  he  is 
a  past-master.  "J'aiiiic  bcaiicoiip  les  Anglais,"  he  once 
said  to  me,  and  I  do  not  think  that  there  can  be  any 
doubt  of  his  and  his  people's  admiration  for  Great 
Britain,  though  what  precisely  he  expects  to  gain  from 
British  friendship  is  not  clear.  He  told  me  that  he  had 
brought  back  from  England  dcs  souvenirs  ct  dcs  cspoirs, 
but  of  what  these  "hopes"  consisted  he  did  not  explain. 
But  ever  since  the  British  Government  of  1880  secured 
him  his  second  outlet  on  the  sea  at  Dulcigno,  the  name 
of  England  in  general,  and  that  of  Gladstone  in  par- 
ticular, has  been  extremely  popular  in  Montenegro. 
Chancing  to  be  in  Montenegro  on  the  morrow  of 
the  Prince's  retiu-n  from  his  first  visit  to  London, 
which  coincided  with  Mr.  Gladstone's  fatal  illness,  I 
found  both  Prince  and  people  fully  conscious  of  the 
loss  which  they  had  sustained.  Nowhere  in  the 
Near  East,  not  even  in  the  Bulgaria  which  he  helped 
to  free,  nor  in  the  Greece  whose  cause  he  always 
pleaded,  did  our  countryman's  death  evoke  such 
demonstrations  of  sorrow  as  in  Montenegro.  The 
Prince  once  said,  that  had  Mr.  Gladstone  visited  his 
country  the  whole  nation  would  have  formed  a  guard 
of  honour  along  the  road  from  the  frontier  to  the  capital. 
He  told  me,  when  I  last  saw  him,  that  never  again  would 
any  foreign  statesman  do  or  care  as  much  for  the  Black 

44 


in   the  Near  East 

Mountain.  He  remarked,  too,  that  if  Mr.  Gladstone  had 
been  in  power  in  1878,  instead  of  Lord  Beaconsfield, 
the  Treaty  of  Berlin,  if  it  had  existed  at  all,  would  have 
been  very  different.  The  article  which  the  dead  states- 
man wrote  in  the  Nineteenth  Century  about  Montenegro 
twenty-one  years  ago  was  reproduced  on  his  death  at  full 
length  in  the  official  journal  of  Cetinje,  and  column  after 
column  about  his  life  was  read  by  every  mountain 
warrior  who  could  procure  a  copy.  But  Prince 
Nicholas,  although,  like  some  other  absolute  rulers, 
he  professes  a  preference  for  politicians  of  Liberal 
opinions,  provided  that  they  are  not  his  own  subjects, 
did  not  pin  his  faith  on  Mr.  Gladstone  alone.  His 
daughters,  during  their  winter  sojournings  on  the 
Riviera,  had  met  the  Queen,  and  the  charm  of  their 
unaffected  manners  at  once  won  her  sympathy.  The 
Prince,  who  prides  himself  on  his  knowledge  of  English 
politics,  about  this  time  gave  a  handsome  subscription 
of  _^8o  to  the  Indian  Famine  Fund.  A  little  later 
the  Queen  bestowed  upon  him  the  Grand  Cross  of 
the  Victorian  Order,  and  expressed  the  desire  to  see  so 
picturesque  and  chivalrous  a  gentleman.  The  Prince 
visited  her  at  Nice,  displayed  his  usual  charm  of  manner, 
his  magnificent  national  costume,  and  his  smooth, 
Parisian  French.  Soon  after  the  world  learned  that 
another  of  his  daughters  was  engaged  to  a  Battenberg, 
and  the  Protestant  marriage  was  celebrated  at  the  British 
Legation  at  Cetinje.  Then  Prince  Nicholas  overcame 
his  dread  of  the  English  Channel,  and  paid  his  first  visit 
to  England,  whither  his  eldest  son  had  gone  to  represent 
him  at  the  Diamond  Jubilee.  Not  merely  the  Queen  and 
the  members  of  the  Royal  Family,  but  the  people  of 
London,  he  told  me,  had  welcomed  him  with  the  utmost 
kindness.  Nothing,  he  said,  had  struck  him  more  on  his 
visit  than  the  extraordinary  fact — for  such  it  must  have 

45 


Travels   and   Politics 

seemed  to  a  benevolent  autocrat  like  himself — that  in  the 
most  constitutional  country  in  the  world  there  was  so 
much  genuine  respect  for  the  Queen  and  the  throne. 
The  Prince's  ideal  of  government  is  a  Liberal  autocracy 
in  a  Conservative  nation  ;  reforms,  according  to  his 
system  of  administration,  all  come  from  above  and  not 
from  below,  and  his  conception  of  his  duty  is  to  recognise 
and  bring  about  such  necessary  changes  as  will  civilise 
his  people  without  making  them  lose  their  national 
characteristics.  It  was  thus  that  he  persuaded  them  to 
make  roads,  which  hitherto  they  had  regarded  rather  as  a 
possible  source  of  danger  than  as  a  commercial  advantage. 
But  he  is  fully  alive  to  the  excellence  of  our  constitutional 
methods  in  a  land  so  different  in  every  respect  from  his 
own,  although  he  assured  me  that  he  had  not  the  slightest 
intention  of  bestowing  such  a  doubtful  advantage  upon 
Montenegro.  His  satisfaction  at  the  alliance  of  his 
daughter  with  the  Prince  of  Naples  is  yet  another  proof 
of  his  shrewdness,  for  the  average  Montenegrins,  whom 
one  meets,  and  who  judge  men  by  their  inches  rather 
than  their  wealth  or  position,  think  less  highly  of  the 
marriage  than  those  who  have  more  knowledge  of  the 
world.  And,  last  year,  when  Greece  threw  down  the 
gauntlet  to  the  Turk,  and  for  a  moment  it  seemed  as  if 
Montenegro  and  the  other  Balkan  States  might  join  in  the 
struggle,  the  Prince  checked  the  natural  desire  of  his 
subjects  to  go  on  the  warpath,  and  earned  the  encomiums 
of  the  Austro-Hungarian  and  Russian  Foreign  Ministers, 
who  praised  him  for  his  "  correct "  attitude,  the  motive 
for  which  was  undoubtedly  the  hope  of  favours  to  come. 
But  the  other  side  of  the  Prince's  character  must  not 
be  ignored.  He  possesses  to  an  uncommon  degree  the 
common  South-Slavonic  love  of  poetry,  and  his  master- 
piece, the  Empress  of  the  Balkans  is  not  merely  a 
remarkable  piece  of  writing,   which   has  earned    for  its 

46 


in   the   Near   East 

author  the  title  of  "  the  foremost  Serb  poet,"  but  is  a 
poHtical  document  of  much  importance.  Into  this 
drama  the  Prince  has  put  those  grand  ideas  which  every 
Serb  imbibes  with  his  mother's  milk  and  cherishes 
dearly,  however  unpractical  he  may  admit  them  to  be  in 
his  calmer  moments.  The  restoration  of  the  old  Servian 
Empire,  which  rose  with  Dusan  and  fell,  I  believe,  for 
ever,  on  the  fatal  field  of  Kossovo  five  centuries  ago,  is 
one  of  the  Prince's  day-dreams.  "  The  small  States, 
among  whose  number  we  are,"  he  says  in  this  play, 
"ought  not  to  be  the  counters  of  the  Great  Powers." 
Recent  events  have  greatly  accentuated  his  ambitions. 
He  has  followed  with  the  keenest  interest  the  recent 
racial  troubles  in  the  Monarchy,  and  believes  that  he  may 
profit  by  them  by  attracting  to  his  banner  some  of 
Austria's  Slav  subjects.  The  uncertainty  of  politics  in 
Servia  and  the  possibility  of  King  Alexander's  abdica- 
tion, coupled  with  the  improbability  of  that  sovereign's 
marriage  in  the  near  future,  have  opened  up  vistas  of 
aggrandisement  in  that  direction  also.  For  Prince 
Nicholas,  whose  eldest  daughter,  now  dead,  married 
Prince  Peter  Karageorgevic,  the  pretender  to  the  Servian 
throne,  considers  himself  as  one  of  the  two  chiefs  of  the 
Serb  people.  With  King  ]\Iilan  of  Servia  he  was  never 
on  good  terms,  and  his  feelings  were  reciprocated  by  that 
monarch.  King  Alexander  he  has  visited  at  Belgrade  and 
received  at  Cetinje,  and  the  resumption  of  good  relations 
between  the  rulers  of  the  two  Serb  States  led  Prince  Peter 
Karageorgevic  to  find  that  the  Lake  of  Geneva  afforded 
better  scope  for  amateur  photography  than  his  father-in- 
law's  capital,  where  I  saw  him  some  years  ago.  The 
solidarity  of  the  Serb  race  is  a  favourite  subject  in  after- 
dinner  speeches,  and  in  the  homely  Montenegrin  inns 
you  may  see  rough  pictures  of  the  old  Servian  tsars 
and    the  crowning    of    Stephen    Dusan.     But  it  may  be 

47 


Travels  and  Politics  in  the  Near  East 

doubted  whether  the  Belgrade  pohticians  would  care, 
in  any  event — even  that  of  the  Obrenovic  dynasty's 
collapse — to  take  their  orders  from  Prince  Nicholas, 
while  it  is  quite  certain  that  he  could  not  govern  the 
Belgrade  politicians  and  his  own  mountaineers  on  the 
same  system.  With  Prince  Ferdinand  of  Bulgaria  he 
has  exchanged  enthusiastic  telegrams,  and  the  meetings 
of  the  two  at  Abbazia  and  Cetinje  this  year  have  been 
interpreted  as  an  attempt  to  form  an  alliance  of  the  three 
Slav  States  of  the  Balkans  against  Austria-Hungary.  On 
the  Turkish-side,  in  Albania  and  old  Servia,  his  hopes  of 
expansion  are  brighter,  because  it  is  a  maxim  of  diplo- 
macy that,  whenever  there  is  a  war  in  the  East,  the  Turk 
shall  provide  the  spoils  for  the  combatants  or  the  umpires. 
Besides,  Prince  Nicholas  has  managed  the  industrious 
Albanian  subjects,  whom  he  received  twenty  years  ago, 
extremely  well,  and  has  accordingly  shown  his  capacity 
for  further  acquisitions  in  that  direction.  He  told  me 
himself  that  these  Mussulmans,  one  of  whom  sometimes 
accompanies  him  on  his  journeys,  had  never,  even  at 
Dulcigno,  given  him  the  least  trouble,  when  he  had  once, 
n  a  notable  instance,  made  it  clear  to  them  that  bcikslilsh 
/was  not  an  argument  recognised  by  a  Montenegrin  judge. 
He  emphasised  also  the  complete  freedom  which  they 
enjoyed,  and  eulogised  their  loyalty  and  industry  under  a 
proper  government.  The  late  skirmishes  at  Berane  do 
not  affect  the  matter,  even  if  the  Turks  extend  the 
present  railway  from  Mitrovica  to  that  point,  as  lately 
rumoured.  For,  as  every  Montenegrin  will  tell  you, 
there  is  no  fear  now  that  the  Turkish  Government  will 
molest  Montenegrin  independence,  even  though  the 
increase  of  Turkish  prestige  by  the  late  war  has  made  it 
harder  for  Montenegro,  as  for  the  other  Balkan  States, 
to  deal  with  the  Porte  ;  the  only  difticulty  is,  as  the 
President   of  the   Council   once    said    to    me,   that  "  the 

49  i^ 


Travels  and   Politics 

Sultan  fears,  and  cannot  control,  his  Albanians."  The 
consequence  is,  that  from  Albania  and  the  Sandzak  of 
Novi-Bazar  bands  of  Christian  refugees  come  over  into 
Montenegro,  as  in  old  days  from  the  Hercegovina,  and 
the  poor  little  Principality  is  expected  to  support  them. 

But  nowadays  the  vital  question  for  Montenegro  is  not 
her  relations  with  Turkey,  but  her  relations  with  Austria- 
Hungary.  With  the  disappearance  of  Turkish  rule  from 
the  Hercegovina  and  the  Austro-Hungarian  occupation 
of  that  old  Turkish  province  in  1878,  the  foreign  policy 
of  the  Black  Mountain  entered  upon  a  new  era,  for 
Austria-Hungary,  in  the  words  of  Baron  von  Kallay,  has 
"  become  a  Balkan  State."  ^  Montenegro  is  naturally  a 
very  poor  country,  and  in  olden  days  the  practice  had 
grown  up  of  making  forays  over  the  Hercegovinian 
border  when  food  was  scarce  at  home  ;  for  the  Herce- 
govina, though  not  the  most  productive  of  lands,  is  still 
fertile  indeed  by  comparison  with  its  neighbour.  "You 
may  think  Bilek  barren,"  said  a  Montenegrin  to  an 
Austrian  official,  "  but  it  is  a  paradise  to  us  who  live  at 
Cevo."  In  Turkish  times  these  forays  did  not  greatly 
matter,  and  were  regarded  by  raiders  and  raided  as  all  in 
the  day's  work  ;  but  a  civilised  Power  could  not  be 
expected  to  take  the  same  lenient  view  of  them,  and  what 
had  formerly  been  an  obscure  frontier  raid  now  became 
a  diplomatic  incident.  Moreover,  as  the  Montenegrin 
cattle  are  small,  and  the  Austro-Hungarian  import  duty 
is  calculated  at  so  much  per  head,  without  regard  to  the 
size  of  the  animal,  a  certain  amount  of  smuggling  takes 
place,  which  leads  to  bloodshed  between  the  Montenegrin 
smugglers  and  the  Austro-Hungarian  guards.  To  these 
material  dif^culties  there  are  added  those  awkward 
historical  memories,  which  disturb  the  peaceful  develop- 
ment of  Balkan  States.     Prince  Nicholas  does  not  forget 

'  Speech  to  the  Budget  Committee,  June  12,  1896. 
50 


in   the   Near   East 

that  his  remote  forbears  came  from  the  Hercegovina,  that 
many  of  his  comrades  he  buried  beneath  its  stones,  and 
that  the  Hercegovinians  are  of  the  same  Serb  race  as  his 
own  subjects.  He  has  always  coveted  the  land  in  which 
he  fought  against  the  Turks  in  1876,  and  he  still  frets 
against  a  fate  which  he  was  powerless  to  prevent.  Austria- 
Hungary  now  holds  his  Principality  as  in  a  vice.  Her 
long  row  of  fortifications  hem  in  Montenegro  along  the 
Hercegovinian  frontier.  The  heights  above  the  Bocche 
di  Cattaro  are  all  commanded  by  Austrian  cannon,  and 
the  most  critical  part  of  the  road  is  held  by  an  Austrian 
block-house.  The  road  itself  is  so  constructed  just  above 
this  point  as  to  be  fully  exposed  to  the  fire  of  the  men-of- 
war  in  the  bay  of  Teodo  below,  and  every  year  sees  these 
precautions  increased.  The  coast  line,  too,  as  far  as  the 
centre  of  the  shore  in  the  bay  of  Antivari  is  in  Austrian 
hands,  for  Dalmatia,  here  reduced  in  many  places  to  a 
narrow  strip  of  a  few  hundred  yards,  shuts  off  the 
mountaineers  from  the  Adriatic.  The  cession  of  Antivari 
to  Montenegro  in  1878  has  been  largely  neutralised  by 
the  Austrian  acquisition  of  Spizza,  which  commands  the 
bay.  While  I  was  at  Cetinje  this  summer  the  Prince 
was  greatly  disturbed  by  the  sudden  appearance  of  seven 
Austrian  torpedo-boats  in  front  of  his  villa  on  the  bay — 
an  event,  probably  accidental,  but  none  the  less  ominous 
of  what  could  be  done  in  certain  contingencies.  Again, 
by  her  garrisons  at  three  points  in  the  Sandzak  of  Novi- 
Bazar,  Austria-Hungary  holds  Servia  and  Montenegro 
apart,  and  is  able  to  keep  an  eye  on  the  Turk  at  the  same 
time.  And,  finally,  even  at  Scutari  in  Albania,  she  has 
the  Albanians  in  her  favour.  As  a  diplomatist  once  said 
to  me,  "  Montenegro  is  suffocated,  for  the  Austrians 
surround  her  on  three  sides  by  their  territory,  and  on  the 
fourth  by  their  influence,  though  the  latter  is  a  fact  which 
w'e  never  mention,  but  which  we  never  forget."    But  even 

51 


Travels  and   Politics 

this  does  not  exhaust  the  whole  of  Austria's  power  over 
the  Black  Motintain.  Without  firing  a  shot,  without 
drawing  a  sword,  the  Austrians  could,  by  one  of  the 
ordinary  devices  of  diplomacy,  starve  Montenegro  out. 
They  have  but  to  imitate  the  policy,  for  which,  with  the 
linguistic  approval  of  a  German  acquaintance,  I  once 
suggested  the  name  of  Scliiveinjieherpolitik.  Whenever 
Servia  is  tiresome  and  restive,  the  discovery  that  swine- 
fever  exists  in  that  country,  and  that  accordingly  pigs,  the 
staple  industry  of  the  kmgdom,  cannot  be  exported  to 
Hungary,  is  sufficient  to  quell  all  disturbance.  Should  it, 
for  any  similar  reason,  be  found  inexpedient  to  allow 
imports  of  food  mto  Montenegro — a  plan  actually 
adopted  this  summer  by  the  Pasha  of  Scutari  after  the 
Berane  troubles — that  country  would  soon  be  reduced  to 
the  verge  of  starvation,  and  even  now  famines  are  by  no 
means  uncommon  in  the  winter.  The  knowledge  of  all 
these  things  naturally  rankles  in  the  Prince's  mind,  and 
the  splendour  of  the  new  Austro- Hungarian  Legation  at 
Cetinje  has  got  on  the  nerves  of  the  natives,  who  this 
summer  could  talk  of  little  else.  Matters  are  aggravated 
by  the  acrimonious  Press  campaigns  which  frequently  go 
on  between  the  two  countries.  Prince  Nicholas,  like 
many  other  public  men,  greatly  exaggerates  the  import- 
ance of  newspaper  articles,  which  those  who  write  them 
well  know  are  forgotten  by  most  readers  as  soon  as  they 
have  been  read.  He  accordingly  takes  to  heart  every 
gibe  which  a  Vienna  comic  paper  may  level  at  him,  and 
he  complained  bitterly  to  me  of  the  newspaper  attacks 
upon  his  government.  On  the  other  hand,  his  own 
journalistic  inspirations  are  sometimes  ill-advised,  and  he 
repented  of  his  hasty  message  to  a  London  journal, 
written,  as  he  said,  "  on  Court  paper,  when  my  baggage 
was  buckled  and  I  had  no  Englishman  by  my  side,"  in 
which  he  quoted   Mr.  Gladstone's  cry  of  "  Hands  Off  !  " 

52 


in  the   Near   East 

to  Austria-Hungarv.  The  whole  Press  of  the  Monarchy 
took  this  up,  and  finally  the  official  organ  of  the  Austro- 
Himgarian  Foreign  Office,  the  Fremdenblatt,  administered 
a  severe  lecture  to  the  Prince.  It  may  surprise  English 
readers  that  a  great  Power  like  Austria-Hungary  should 
take  her  small  neighbour  so  seriously ;  and,  in  fact, 
Russia  herself  hardly  causes  the  statesmen  of  the 
Monarchy  so  much  annoyance  as  Russia's  outpost  at 
Cetinje.  I  never  thoroughly  understood  the  reason,  until 
one  day  a  politician,  who  knew  both  Austria-Hungary 
and  Montenegro  well,  explained  to  me  the  situation  in  a 
sentence  :  "  If  a  dog  tries  to  bite  me,  I  can  kill  him  ; 
but  if  a  flea  tickles  me,  what  can  I  do  ?  "  Montenegro  is 
the  flea,  constantly  tickling  the  Austrian  giant,  and  one 
can  easily  understand,  from  the  Austrian  standpoint,  the 
objections  raised  to  the  cession  of  Antivari  and  Dulcigno 
to  the  Principality,  as  being  so  many  places  where  Russia 
can  land  arms,  to  be  used  against — her  enemy.  The 
truth  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  prophecy  that  "  no  Austrian 
eagle  will  ever  build  its  nest  in  the  fastnesses  of  the 
Black  Mountain,"  the  future  alone  can  decide.  For  the 
present  the  salient  fact  of  Montenegrin  foreign  policy  is 
that  Austria,  the  Erzfeiiid,  not  Turkey,  the  Erhfeind,  is  now 
dreaded  at  Cetinje. 

But  Prince  Nicholas  is  not  wholly  absorbed  by  ques- 
tions of  high  statecraft.  Like  most  able  statesmen,  he 
finds  time  for  small  matters  as  well  as  great.  Indeed,  he 
has  a  hand  in  every  department  of  administration,  and 
knows  everything  that  goes  on  in  his  dominions.  When 
some  friends  of  mine,  staying  at  the  "Grand  Hotel,"  which 
his  paternal  care  called  into  existence  for  the  benefit  of 
travellers,  found  the  water  undrinkable  and  the  landlord 
deaf  to  their  complaints,  they  went  in  person  and  laid  the 
matter  before  his  Highness.  The  Prince  at  once  took  the 
subject  up,  and  issued  the  proper  order  for  the  inspection 

53 


Travels  and   Politics 

of  the  well.  A  mouldy  Montenegrin  ham,  which  had 
been  hung  over  the  water  to  cool,  was  discovered  to  be 
polluting  the  supply,  and  the  landlord  was  reprimanded 
by  his  sovereign  and  told  not  to  let  it  occur  again.  When 
one  of  the  British  Minister's  children  broke  her  arm  in 
Ireland,  the  Prince,  as  soon  as  he  heard  of  the  accident, 
telegraphed  desiring  iine  prompte giicrisoii  a  ma  petite  aiiiie. 
In  the  midst  of  a  political  conversation  he  paused  to  ex- 
press to  me  his  admiration  at  the  way  in  which  our  police- 
men managed  the  immense  street  traffic  of  London, 
although,  as  he  put  it,  "  there  are  more  omnibuses  in  one 
big  London  thoroughfare  than  in  all  Paris."  He  showed 
also  a  just  appreciation  of  the  historical  treasures  of  the 
Tower  and  Windsor  Castle,  which,  with  characteristic 
curiosity,  he  explored  "  down  to  the  kitchens,"  and  was 
greatly  interested  in  the  Sevres  china,  the  relics  of 
Napoleon  I.,  and  the  bullet  which  killed  Nelson.  On 
one  occasion,  when  he  was  leaving  his  country  for  a 
considerable  time,  he  resolved  to  provide  employment  for 
his  warriors,  who  strongly  object  to  any  form  of  work 
that  is  not  warlike,  and  at  the  same  time  improve  the  wine 
trade  of  the  Black  Mountain.  He  accordingly  summoned 
the  chief  men  together  and  in  their  presence  planted  a 
vine-stock  with  his  own  hands,  bidding  them  all  go  home 
and  do  likewise.  Finding  that  the  art  of  farriery  was 
despised  by  the  Montenegrin  braves,  he  is  said  to  have 
caused  a  smithy  to  be  erected  outside  the  palace,  and 
there  to  have  hammered  a  horseshoe  for  the  benefit  of  his 
haughty  subjects,  who  were  thus  convinced  that  what 
was  good  enough  for  their  Gospoclar  was  good  enough  for 
them.  A  very  early  riser,  he  once  called  upon  a  slumbering 
diplomatist  at  six  in  the  morning,  and  I  saw  him  giving 
orders  to  his  architect  and  laying  the  foundation-stone  of  a 
new  church  soon  after  daybreak.  He  usually  gets  through 
two  hours'  work  before  breakfast,  as   his  time  is  naturally 

54 


in   the   Near   East 

much  occupied,  F'or  he  is  everything  in  Montenegro  and, 
as  a  friend  of  mine  once  said,  "a  sparrow  cannot  fall 
from  the  roof  without  his  issuing  an  Order  in  Council  for 
its  restoration."  Besides,  in  one  respect  he  resembles  the 
German  Emperor  in  that  he  is  perpetually  travelling  about 
his  country,  in  each  town  of  which  he  has  a  villa.  At 
Njegus,  the  home  of  the  first  Petrovic  prince-bishop  of 
Montenegro,  the  traveller  on  the  way  up  from  Cattaro 
will  see  his  simple  mansion,  and  he  has  similar  establish- 
ments dotted  about  the  Principality — near  Podgorica,  at 
Niksic,  at  Rjeka,  and  on  the  bay  of  Antivari.  He  never 
neglects  to  attend  any  national  festival,  and  his  hasty 
return  from  England  was  due  to  his  desire  to  be  present 
at  the  fortieth  anniversary  of  the  Battle  of  Grab ovo,  where 
his  late  father,  Mirko,  inflicted  an  overwhelming  defeat 
upon  the  Turks. 

Unlike  Prince  Ferdinand  of  Bulgaria,  whose  Court  is 
one  of  the  most  formal  in  the  world,  Prince  Nicholas  is 
not  a  great  stickler  for  etiquette.  I  beheld  his  aide-de- 
camp bring  into  the  salon  of  the  hotel  the  Grand  Cordon 
of  the  Order  of  Danilo  for  the  Duke  of  Connaught, 
wrapped  up  in  a  boot-box,  while  a  grave  discussion  took 
place  in  French  as  to  the  best  means  of  sending  it  to 
England.  You  may  see  his  Highness  laughing  and  joking 
on  the  steps  of  his  palace  with  his  father-in-law,  Peter 
Vukotic,  a  jovial  Montenegrin  warrior  of  the  old  school, 
one  of  the  heroes  of  the  war  of  1876-7,  who  speaks  only 
one  language,  Serb,  and  is  the  hero  of  a  hundred  fights. 
In  the  midst  of  a  Court  procession  the  Prince  hailed  the 
.postman,  whom  he  spied  in  the  distance,  and  stopped  his 
carriage  in  order  to  seize  his  letters  and  newspapers.  His 
portly  form,  under  a  vast  umbrella,  may  be  observed  at 
the  gate  of  the  Russian  Institute,  an  educational  establish- 
ment for  girls,  in  which  he  takes  a  keen  interest.  On  the 
betrothal  of    his  daughter  to    the    Prince  of    Naples  he 

55 


Travels    and    Politics 

allowed  twelve  stalwart  mountaineers  to  seize  him  in  his 
palace  and  carry  him  shoulder-high  down  the  main  street. 
Like  his  namesake,  Nicholas  I.  of  Russia,  on  a  memorable 
occasion,  he  talks  of  the  Princess  as  "  my  wife,"  and 
affably  invites  you  to  "  take  a  potage  "  with  her.  There  is 
no  pomp,  no  circumstance  about  the  palace,  a  comfort- 
able but  quite  unpretentious  two-storeyed  building,  which 
opens  straight  on  to  the  street.  From  the  outside  it  looks 
like  a  French  country  house  or  a  commodious  Swiss 
hotel.  A  couple  of  sentry-boxes  painted  red  and  white, 
the  Montenegrin  colours,  stand  on  either  side  of  the  flight 
of  steps  which  lead  up  to  the  door.  Several  pcriaiiiks  of 
the  Prince's  bodvguard,  so  called  from  the  periaiiica,  or 
"  tuft  of  feathers,"  which  they  wear  in  their  caps,  are 
usually  lounging  about  the  entrance  awaiting  any  orders 
that  their  sovereign  may  have  for  them.  Passing  through 
the  hall  and  up  the  staircase  to  the  first  floor,  you  are 
ushered  into  a  large  reception-room,  upholstered  in  dark 
red  and  ornamented  with  portraits  of  the  Russian  tsars  and 
the  Prince's  uncle  and  predecessor,  Danilo  II,  Out  of 
this  opens  the  Prince's  study,  on  the  walls  of  which  hang 
portraits  of  the  King  and  Queen  of  Italy.  The  Gospodar 
is,  like  the  Queen  of  Roumania,  a  great  believer  in  the 
national  dress,  and  during  his  recent  stay  at  Buckingham 
Palace  he  purchased  his  first  dress  suit.  In  "  European  " 
garb  he  would  probably  look  very  ordinary,  but  in  his 
full,  dark  blue  knickerbockers  and  his  crimson  jacket  with 
flowing  sleeves,  the  breast  of  which  is  covered  with 
decorations,  he  looks  every  inch  the  Highland  chief.  Out 
of  doors  he  wears  the  usual  iVIontenegrin  cap  of  crimson 
and  black — crimson  for  the  streams  of  blood  that  have 
flowed  down  these  rocks,  black  in  token  of  mourning  for 
Kossovo's  fatal  field— which  bears  in  one  corner  his 
initials,  surrounded  by  five  strips  of  gold  braid,  to 
signify    Montenegro's    five    centuries    of     independence. 

5^ 


in   the   Near   East 

In  his  case  the  cap  bears  in  the  front  the  highest  of  the 
nine  Montenegrin  mihtary  insignia.  Like  every  one  of 
his  subjects,  he  carries  in  the  silaf,  or  red  morocco  pouch 
at  his  variegated  girdle,  the  inevitable  revolver,  without 
which  no  Montenegrin's  toilet  is  complete.  So  long  as  he 
lives  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  picturesque  national 


PORTRAIT   OF   PRINCE   NICHOLAS   OUTSIDE   BRITISH    LEGATION. 

(Fivni  a  Photo,  by  Miss  La  Tonche.) 


costume  will  be  preserved.  But  the  rising  generation 
may  not  be  able  to  resist  the  desire  to  imitate  the  Serbs 
of  Belgrade  and  assume  "  European  "  garb,  especially 
as  the  full  native  dress  costs  from  32  to  300  gulden 
{£2  13s.  4d.  to  £2^).  The  Princess  of  Montenegro  always 
dresses  as  the  women  of  Crnagora  have  done  for  genera- 
tions, but  her  daughters  hate  the  native  attire,  and  putt  it 
on  only  once  a  year.     I'  noticed,  too,  among  the  younger 

57 


Travels   and   Politics 

men  who  had  been  to  "  Europe,"  a  growing  disincHnation 
to  continue  wearing  it.  It  was  only  by  asking  it  as  a  per- 
sonal favour  that  we  could  induce  Tomo,  the  charming 
waiter  of  the  hotel  at  Cetinje,  to  cast  aside  the  frock-coat, 
which  some  Frenchman  had  bequeathed  him,  and  resume 
his  silafiind  his  revolver.  A  theory  has  been  started  that 
these  huge  revolvers  and  enormous  leather  belts  which  the 
Montenegrins  carry  at  their  waists,  injure  their  stomachs 
and  impede  digestion,  and  Tomo  was  desirous  to  have, 
like  the  Prince,  a  small  pistol  of  British  make.  At  the 
Russian  Institute,  too,  the  mistress  makes  the  girls  don 
homely  "  European  "  dress,  as  soon  as  they  enter  as  pupils, 
because  she  thinks  that  the  more  artistic  national  gar- 
ments divert  their  attention  from  their  work.  This  question 
of  costume  is,  in  the  Near  East,  of  more  than  merely 
artistic  interest  ;  for  I  have  observed  that  the  Oriental  is 
apt  to  deteriorate  morally  when  he  assumes  Western  garb. 
An  American  poet  has  ridiculed  the  man  who  "  puts  off 
his  religion  with  his  Sunday  pantaloons."  The  native  of 
the  Balkans  seems  not  infrequently  to  "put  off"  his 
primitive  faith  and  his  simple  ideas  when  he  puts  on  a 
black  coat.  The  frock-coated  Balkan  politician  is  not  by 
any  means  the  same  ingenuous  person  as  the  peasant,  who 
is  of  the  same  stock  as  himself,  and  the  silk  hat  too  often 
converts  an  unsophisticated  son  of  the  soil  into  a  very 
poor  imitation  of  a  Parisian  man-of-the-world.  At  present, 
however,  there  is  no  fear  that  the  Montenegrin  headdress 
will  perish,  and  the  English  firm  of  hatters  which  asked 
our  Minister  as  to  the  best  means  of  effecting  a  sale  of 
top-hats  in  the  Principality  might  just  as  well  have  sent  a 
sample  of  their  wares  to  the  Polar  regions.  As  a  specimen, 
however,  of  the  absolute  ignorance  of,  and  indifference  to, 
national  customs,  which  our  traders  usually  display  in  the 
Near  East,  the  incident  has  its  practical  as  well  as  its 
humorous  aspect. 

58 


in  the  Near  East 

Not  only  the  future  of  Montenegrin  dress  but  much 
more  will  depend  upon  the  Prince's  successor,  whose 
character  is  sure  to  be  largely  influenced  by  his  future  con- 
sort. This  question  of  providing  the  Crown  Prince 
Danilo  with  a  wife  is  a  very  difficult  and  delicate  one  for 
Montenegro,  just  as  the  choice  of  a  spouse  for  the  young 
King  of  Servia  is  a  pressing  problem  for  the  other  Serb 
State.  Prince  Nicholas  has  been  one  of  the  most  success- 
ful match-makers  of  his  time,  and  the  King  of  Denmark 
alone  has  done  better  for  the  princesses  of  his  house. 
When  a  visitor  to  Cetinje  once  told  the  Prince  that  his 
country  was  very  beautiful  and  interesting,  but  that  it 
appeared  to  have  no  valuable  exports,  his  Highness  replied 
with  a  twinkle  in  his  eye,  "  Sir,  you  forget  my  daughters." 
But  it  is  much  easier,  as  the  Prince  has  found  out,  to 
marry  a  Montenegrin  Princess  in  Italy  or  Russia  than  to 
discover  a  wife  for  the  heir-apparent.  In  the  first  place 
Cetinje  is  not  a  capital  where  many  young  ladies  of  fashion 
would  care  to  pass  the  remainder  of  their  natural  lives. 
It  possesses  few  shops,  and  those  that  it  does  possess  are 
exclusively  devoted  to  the  sale  of  the  simplest  necessaries  of 
existence.  Four  years  ago  it  did  not  even  boast  a  dentist, 
and  that  branch  of  surgery  was  represented  in  the  Princi- 
pality by  such  persons  as  the  Albanian  tooth-doctor  of 
Dulcigno,  whose  methods  were  once  feelingly  described  to 
me  by  the  Turkish  Consul  at  that  place.  This  Albanian — 
who,  in  the  intervals  of  tooth-drawing  pursued  the  calling 
of  a  blacksmith — made  his  luckless  patient  sit  down  on  the 
ground  with  his  hands  tightly  clasped  round  his  knees, 
while  he  tugged  and  tugged  at  the  refractory  tooth  till  it 
came  out.  "  If  some  of  your  philanthropic  English 
travellers,"  slily  added  the  Consul,  "  were  to  see  such  an 
operation  they  would  write  to  the  papers,  protesting  that 
they  had  witnessed  a  poor  prisoner  being  tortured." 
Even  the  Princess,  who  was  born  in   the  country,  once 

59 


Travels   and   Politics 

remarked,  when  asked  why  Cetinje  had  been  preferred 
as  the  capital  to  other  and  better  sites,  that  it  was  very 
convenient  because  it  was  so  easy  to  get  away  from  it  to 
"  Europe." 

There  are  "  European  "  residents,  indeed,  who,  after  five 
years'  residence  protest  that  they  would  have  no  objection 
to  five  years  more,  and  M.  Piguet,  the  tutor  of  the  Prince's 
family,  has  collected  butterflies  and  played  whist  there  for 
the  last  thirteen.  But,  outside  the  palace,  the  houses  of 
a  few  officials,  and  the  diplomatic  circle,  there  is  no 
society,  and  the  means  of  giving  entertainments,  even 
with  assistance  from  Cattaro  or  Ragusa,  are  limited.  The 
Princess  of  Naples  had  to  purchase  her  irousseau  in 
Vienna,  and  when  anything  is  wanted  in  a  hurry  at  the 
palace  a  messenger  must  be  sent  on  foot — for  that  for  a 
Montenegrin  is  the  quickest  way  —  down  the  famous 
"ladder"  of  stones  to  the  nearest  Austrian  town,  seven 
hours  distant  by  the  carriage  road.  But,  it  may  be  said,  why 
should  not  the  Crown  Prince  marry,  like  his  father,  in  his 
own  country,  if  it  is  so  difficult  to  find  him  a  foreign 
bride  ?  But  to  this  course  there  are  social  obstacles. 
Prince  Nicholas,  it  is  true,  played  as  a  boy  with  other 
Montenegrin  boys  in  the  streets  ;  his  old  mother,  to 
whom  he  was  devotedly  attached,  lived  and  died  in  a  tiny 
house  in  a  small  village  outside  Cetinje  ;  and  the  Princess 
was  the  daughter  of  a  homely,  if  very  distinguished, 
^Montenegrin.  But  the  Crown  Prince  has  been  brought 
up  as  an  heir-apparent,  and  was  always  treated  by  his 
tutor  as  such.  Outside  his  palace  two  sentries  are 
stationed,  and  when  he  drives  out  to  take  the  air  along 
the  Cattaro  road  in  the  cool  of  the  day  an  aide-de-camp 
accompanies  him.  He  would  accordingly  regard  the 
women  of  Montenegro  as  beneath  him,  while  his 
father,  as  a  young  man,  was  merely  primus  inter  pares. 
Prince  Nicholas,  too,  has  social  as  well  as  political  aspira- 

60 


in  the  Near  East 

tions,  and  is  well  aware  that  at  the  punctilious  Court  of 
Germany,  for  example,  in  the  words  of  a  German 
Court  official,  which  were  reported  to  me,  he  is  not 
considered,  even  now,  as  hoffaliig.  Compared  with 
the  Obrenovic  dynasty  in  Servia,  whose  founder  was 
keeping  pigs  only  a  century  ago,  the  long  line  of 
the  Petrovic  princes  and  prince-bishops,  which  has 
never  dabbled  in  trade,  possesses,  one  would  have 
thought,  sutticient  antiquity  for  even  a  German  high 
chamberlain,  quite  apart  from  the  fact  that  every  Monte- 
negrin is  by  nature  a  gentleman.  But  the  opinion  has 
been  expressed  that  a  Prince  of  Montenegro  will  only  be 
fit  to  associate  with  a  German  Kaiser  when  he  has  married 
into  the  great  "  European  "  family  of  princes.  This,  ac- 
cordingly, is  what  the  Prince  is  anxious  that  his  successor 
should  do,  and  over  four  years  ago  he  wrote  a  poem  for 
the  dedication  of  his  eldest  son's  palace,  in  which  he 
prayed  that  Prince  Danilo  might  "  lead  a  happy  life  with 
his  loving  companion."  That  "  companion,"  who  was 
not,  it  was  added,  to  be,  like  his  mother,  a  Montenegrin 
lady,  has  not,  however,  been  found,  and  it  is  possible 
that,  in  the  phrase  of  a  Teutonic  commentator,  eiiie 
diiinine  Deutsche  will  have  to  be  the  next  Princess  of  the 
most  poetic  Principality  in  the  world.  Of  the  Crown 
Prince  himself  it  is  perhaps  too  early  to  write  with  much 
certainty.  Prince  Danilo  is  a  passionate  lover  of  the  chase, 
and  his  exploits  as  a  mighty  hunter  have  been  extolled, 
but  not  exaggerated,  in  an  enthusiastic  German  pamphlet, 
which  I  was  fortunate  enough  to  have  lent  me  at  Cetinje. 
It  is  owing  to  his  initiative  that  a  close  time  has  been 
instituted  for  various  kinds  of  game,  and,  even  for  a 
Montenegrin,  he  is  a  deadly  shot.  After  one  of  the 
shooting-parties  in  the  mountains,  in  which  the  whole 
Court  took  part,  his  father  expressed  the  wish  that  the 
Prince    of    Wales    and   the    Duke    of    York    would   visit 

6i 


Travels  and   Politics 

Montenegro  for  purposes  of  sport ;  and  the  son  is  an 
even  keener  sportsman  than  Prhice  Nicholas.  He  gave 
a  tennis-court  to  the  British  Legation,  just  as  his  father 
presented  the  British  Minister  with  a  stretch  of  fishing 
up-country,  and  in  every  way  shows  himself  an  amiable 
personality.  He  is  also  a  close  observer,  and  his  father 
told  me  that  he  had  been  delighted  to  find  London  exactly 
as  his  son  had  described  it.  But  if  appearance  be  any 
criterion  of  character  he  hardly  gives  promise  of  being  a 
great  ruler,  like  his  sire.  He  has  iiot  a  strong  face,  and 
strikes  one  as  being  more  "  modern  "  than  the  average 
Montenegrin.  Besides,  the  history  of  the  Balkan  Penin- 
sula teaches  the  melancholy  fact  that  each  nationality  in 
turn  produces  some  great  man,  who  for  a  brief  space 
makes  himself  the  foremost  figure  of  the  peninsula  and 
rapidly  acquires  a  power  which  is  as  rapidly  dissipated 
at  his  death.  Bulgaria  can  point  to  her  mighty  Tsars, 
Simeon  and  Samuel,  Servia  cherishes  the  memory  of 
Stephen  Dusan,  the  Albanians  have  found  a  national  hero 
in  Skanderbeg,  the  Bosnian  kingdom  attained  its  zenith 
under  Tvrtko  L  And  so,  in  a  lesser  degree,  Montenegro 
has  come  to  fame  under  Nicholas  I.  But  the  absolute 
government,  which  the  present  Prince  has  so  skilfully 
conducted  for  nearly  forty  years,  depends  entirely  for  its 
success  upon  the  personality  of  the  monarch.  Now  it 
is  not  so  easy  as  outsiders  imagine  to  administer  a 
country  so  small  as  Montenegro  ;  for  the  Prince  of  such 
a  peculiar  State  has  to  ignore  the  advice  which  Plato 
sagely  gave  to  despots  in  all  ages,  to  keep  themselves  as 
far  as  possible  from  the  public  gaze.  But  Prince  Nicholas 
has  lived  all  his  life  in  the  public  eye  ;  his  subjects  know 
every  fact  of  his  career,  they  see  him  daily  in  the  streets, 
they  can  seek  his  counsel  and  invoke  his  aid  whenever 
they  choose.  Under  these  circumstances  it  is  no  small 
praise    to    the    Prince's  tact   and    charm  of  manner  that 

62 


in   the   Near   East 

he  has  succeeded  in  remaining  a  prophet  in  his  own 
country  and  that  by  ahnost  all  his  subjects  he  is  regarded 
with  unstinted  veneration.  As  an  example  of  this  may 
be  instanced  the  case  of  one  of  them,  who  was  thrown 
into  the  depths  of  despair  by  being  deprived  for  five  years 
of  the  privilege  of  kissing  his  sovereign's  hand  as  punish- 
ment for  an  offence.  But  now  and  again,  as  in  one 
remarkable  incident  this  spring,  when  a  haughty  Monte- 
negrin, against  whom  the  Prince  had  decided  in  his 
capacity  of  supreme  head  of  the  judicial  system,  left  the 
country  in  indignation  and  went  to  Russia,  there  is 
evidence  that  a  younger  and  less  experienced  man  might 
not  be  able  to  impose  his  will  upon  this  proud  race  of 
mountaineers.  Besides,  it  is  difficult  to  imagine  that 
even  Crnagora  will  resist  for  another  generation  the 
temptation  to  become  more  "  European."  All  that  can 
be  affirmed  about  it  with  safety  is  that  the  present  Prince 
is  emphatically  the  right  man  in  the  right  place,  and  that 
the  heir-apparent  is  not,  so  far  as  can  be  judged,  a  second 
Nicholas.  The  Prince's  second  son.  Prince  Mirko, 
inherits  his  father's  poetical  talents  and  has  already 
composed  songs  and  dance  music ;  the  third.  Prince 
Peter,  a  dear  little  boy,  means,  so  he  says,  **  to  be  a 
soldier."  The  two  unmarried  daughters  share  their 
parents'  good  looks. 

Autocratic  as  he  is,  the  Prince  has  ministers  who  carry 
out  his  policy.  The  President  of  the  Council  and 
Minister  of  the  Interior  is  his  cousin,  the  Voivode  Bozo 
(a  Serb  form  of  Theodore)  Petrovic,  who  has  lately 
obtained  European  notoriety  by  his  candidature  for  the 
governorship  of  Crete.  The  real  facts  about  this  candida- 
ture have  never  yet  been  published  ;  the  truth  was  that 
the  late  Russian  Minister  to  Montenegro,  who  disliked 
the  Prince,  proposed  Bozo  Petrovic  in  order  to  annoy  his 
Highness,  who  was  very  glad  that  a  body  of  strapping 

63 


Travels  and   Politics 

Montenegrin  gendarmes  should  he  sent  to  Crete,  but  was 
by  no  means  anxious  that  his  cousin  should  be  moved 
from  Cetinje  to  Canea.  During  the  conversations  which 
I  have  had  with  the  President  of  the  Council,  he  has 
struck  me  as  a  shrewd  and  capable  administrator,  and, 
like  most  of  his  contemporaries,  he  won  many  laurels, 
which  he  modestly  wears,  for  his  conduct  as  commander 
of  the  Army  of  the  South  in  the  Turco-Montenegrin 
campaign  of  1876.  M.  Nicolas  Matanovic,  the  Minister 
of  Finance,  approaches  more  nearly  to  one's  idea  of  a 
European  minister,  not  because  of  his  excellent  French — 
for  that  is  a  common  accomplishment  among  the  higher 
Montenegrin  officials — but  from  his  grasp  of  figures  and 
his  very  diplomatic  manner.  M.  Matanovic  has  on  many 
occasions  rendered  important  services  to  his  country 
abroad,  and  three  years  ago  was  entrusted  with  the 
delicate  task  of  expressing  his  master's  thanks  at  St. 
Petersburg  for  the  Tsar's  gift  of  rifles  and  explaining  at 
Vienna  that  they  were  a  further  guarantee  of  peace. 
One  of  the  most  interesting  figures  in  the  Ministry  is 
that  of  the  Voivode  Elia  Plamenac,  the  Minister  of  War, 
a  bronzed  veteran  who  has  spent  most  of  his  life  in  fighting 
his  country's  battles,  and  whom  I  met  four  years  ago,  at 
a  rather  critical  moment,  at  Podgorica,  when  he  was  on 
his  way  to  discuss  the  Albanian  frontier  question  with 
the  Turkish  Commissioner.  His  name,  "the  little  flame," 
is  emblematical  of  his  career,  for  the  fire,  which  he 
helped  to  direct  in  the  last  war,  was,  if  small,  extremely 
bright. 

To  see  the  Court  at  its  simplest  one  should  be  at 
Cetinje  at  Christmas-time.  The  quaint  Serb  proverb 
says,  "  If  Christian  had  been  good,  he  would  have  stayed 
at   home   on    Christmas    Day,"  ^  and  the    Montenegrins 

'  I  have  had  to  translate  Bozo  in  the  original  by  "  Christian,"  so  as  to  preserve 
the  pun  on  Bozic — "  Christmas  Day." 

64 


in   the   Near   East 

fully  share  this  feeling  of  reverence  for  the  great  family 
festival  of  the  year.      Montenegro  observes,  like  Servia, 
Bulgaria,  and  Greece,  the  orthodox  calendar,  so  Christmas 
at  Cetinje  falls  on  the  6th  of  January.     For  several  days 
before,  long  logs  of  wood  or  tall  young  trees  are  dragged 
into  the  town  and  placed  outside  each  house.     It  seems, 
indeed,  as  if  *'  Birnam  wood  "  had  "  come  to  Dunsinane," 
for  a  young  forest  suddenly  springs  up  before  the  palace 
windows  and    the  gates  of    the  Crown  Prince's    abode. 
When   Christmas  Eve  arrives  every  householder  throws 
the  yule-log,  or  badnjak,  on  the   fire,  which  is  kept  alive 
for  three  days  and  nights.     The   entrance-hall  of  every 
house  and  one  room  are  covered  with   straw,   and  the 
princely  family,  like  the  rest,  take  their  Christmas  dinner 
sitting  or  lying  on  this  natural  carpet.     Every  orthodox 
family  keeps  open  house  that  day,  and  Homeric  banquets 
are  served  up,  of  which  pigs,  roasted  whole,  and  sheep 
deftly  carved  with  a    Montenegrin    claymore,  form   the 
principal  part,  while  the  air  resounds  with  the  crack  of 
revolver-shots — here,  as   in   most  countries  of    the   Near 
East,  the  favourite  mode  of  expressing  the  people's  joy. 
Of  all  the  recent  reforms  in  the  Black  Mountain,  none 
is  greater  than  the  decision,  arrived  at  three  years  ago,  to 
celebrate  the  Bicentenary  of  the  dynasty  by  the  formation 
of  a  standing  army.     Hitherto  the  army  had  simply  been 
the  nation  under  arms,  and   every  man  of  the  Prince's 
warrior  subjects,  with  the  exception   of   the  Mussulman 
inhabitants  of  Antivari  and  Dulcigno,  who  were  exempt 
on    payment    of   a    capitation    tax    of    7   gulden    a-head, 
was  liable  to  serve  in  time    of  war.     Even    the   women 
bore  their  part  in  campaigns  by  carrying  provisions  for 
the  men,  in  the  absence  of  a  proper  commissariat,  and 
the  Prince's  sister  was  a  perfect  paladin  of  warfare.      The 
only  nucleus  of  a  standing  army  which  existed  was  the 
Prince's    bodyguard    of    64    periaiiiks,    and    no    special 

65  F 


Travels   and   Politics 

unifonn  was  worn.  It  was  calculated  in  1894  that,  in  the 
event  of  war,  the  Principality  could  put  into  the  field,  or 
rather  on  to  the  mountain,  eight  brigades  of  infantry,  con- 
sisting of  35,548  men,  and  eight  batteries  of  artillery,  608 
strong.  With  the  artillerymen  and  ofHcers  in  charge  of 
depots,  the  total  strength  was  36,222  men.  But  the 
Prince,  during  his  visit  to  the  Tsar  in  the  winter  of  that 
year,  made  such  a  favourable  impression  upon  his  name- 
sake, that  the  latter  not  only  sent  him  a  number  of  time- 
expired  Russian  non-commissioned  officers  to  act  as 
military  instructors,  but  a  Russian  vessel,  laden  with 
30,000  rifles,  not,  however,  of  the  newest  make — a  fact, 
which  somewhat  damped  the  enthusiasm  of  the  Monte- 
negrin people.  The  next  steps  were  the  erection  of 
barracks  at  Cetinje  and  the  foundation  of  a  military 
college  under  the  superintendence  of  native  officers, 
who  had  studied  abroad,  at  Podgorica.  To  these 
barracks,  which  are  the  largest  public  buildings  of  the 
little  capital,  a  battalion  is  sent  for  three  months'  training, 
and  then  succeeded  by  another,  so  that  in  this  way  every 
Montenegrin  will  have  three  months'  drill  every  ten  or 
twelve  years.  The  soldiers  wear  special  caps,  and  the 
second  Russian  gift  of  arms  in  the  present  year  has  pro- 
vided them  with  more  weapons.  But  experts  doubt 
whether  Montenegro  will  greatly  gain  by  these  military 
changes.  In  the  first  place,  the  Montenegrin  is  an 
admirable  fighter  in  guerilla  warfare,  but  has  had  little 
experience  of  regular  campaigns.  He  is  brave  to  the  last 
degree — only  one  Montenegrin  was  captured  alive  in  the 
last  war — and  ready  at  any  moment  to  die  for  his  Prince; 
but  bravery  is  not  everything  in  modern  warfare,  and  it 
is  doubted  whether  a  regular  army  of  these  mountaineers 
would  be  of  much  use  against  trained  soldiers,  especially 
if  the  war  were  carried  on  beyond  the  limits  of  their  own 
rocky  country.     Moreover,  a  high  military  authority  has 

66 


in  the   Near   JEast 

pointed  out  that  the  extension  of  Montenegrin  territory 
since  the  last  war  has  made  the  country  less  easily 
defensible  than  before.  Roads,  too,  beneficent  as  they 
are  in  times  of  peace,  may  prove  to  be  dangerous  in 
time  of  war,  and  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the 
future  enemy  whom  the  Montenegrins  may  have  to 
fight  is  of  a  very  different  calibre  from  that  of  their 
ancient  foes  whom  they  have  worsted  in  a  thousand 
battles.  The  Prince  once  said  that  the  next  war  would 
be,  so  far  as  he  was  concerned,  a  bloody  one;  and  the 
Montenegrins  are  warriors  of  very  different  stuff  from 
that  of  which  Greek  soldiers  are  made.  But  in  one 
respect  they  resemble  the  Hellenic  army,  in  that  they 
do  much  better  as  freelances  among  their  native 
mountains,  of  which  they  know  every  hole  and  cranny, 
than  in  a  pitched  battle,  where  their  crimson  dress  alone 
would,  in  that  white  landscape,  make  them  an  easy  target 
for  artillery. 

The  Prince  is  very  proud  of  his  achievements  as  a  road- 
maker,  and  the  156  kilometres  (or  97^  miles)  of  excellent 
driving  roads  which  the  Principality  now  possesses  are 
all  his  work,  while  60  kilometres  (or  37^  miles)  are  in 
course  of  construction,  and  sixty  more  are  fairly  good. 
It  is  now  possible  to  drive  from  the  Montenegrin  frontier 
above  Cattaro  into  the  heart  of  the  country  at  Niksic  by 
way  of  Cetinje  and  Podgorica,  and  what  is  now  chiefly 
wanted,  as  the  Prince  pointed  out  to  me,  is  a  road  from 
Niksic,  40  kilometres  in  length,  as  far  as  the  Austrian 
boundary  in  the  mountains  behind  Risano,  which  would 
greatly  develop  the  trade  of  that  region.  The  Austrians 
have  much  encouraged  and  assisted  the  Prince  in  his 
efforts  at  opening  up  the  country,  for  obvious  commercial 
and  strategical  reasons.  From  1881,  when  the  late  Arch- 
duke Rudolph  inaugurated  the  splendid  serpentine  from 
Cattaro  along  the  face  of  the  mountain  by  driving  up  it 

67 


Travels  and   Politics 

in  a  magnificent  coach,  Austria- Hungary  paid  to  the 
Prince  a  yearly  subsidy  of  30,000  gulden  (;^'2,5oo)  for  this 
purpose.  Six  years  ago,  however,  during  one  of  the 
perennial  Press  campaigns  between  the  two  countries, 
the  Monarchy  stopped  this  subsidy,  for  which,  in  the 
opinion  of  its  statesmen,  Montenegro  had  latterly  done 
very  little  road-making.  The  result  was  what  was  ex- 
pected. The  Gins  Criiogorca  moderated  its  language,  and 
more  work  was  put  into  the  roads.  The  greater  part  of 
the  Austrian  subsidy  is,  for  very  practical  reasons,  given 
in  materials,  such  as  spades,  picks,  carts,  and  blasting- 
powder,  but  even  so  the  Montenegrin  Government 
cannot  accomplish  very  much,  partly  because  it  has  such 
small  funds  at  its  disposal,  and  partly  because  spade  labour 
does  not  commend  itself  to  the  sons  of  Crnagora, 
Original  in  this,  as  in  most  of  his  arrangements,  the 
Prince  usually  waits  till  a  "  famine  year  "  comes  round, 
and  then  distributes  the  supplies  of  grain,  which  he  has 
obtained  from  Russia,  on  condition  that  the  recipients 
earn  his  charity  by  working  on  the  roads.  In  addition 
to  this,  all  male  inhabitants  of  districts  through  which 
roads  pass  are  compelled  to  give  four  days'  labour  twice 
every  year,  or  to  pay  4  gulden  (6s.  8d.)  towards  the 
repairs  of  the  roads.  Until  three-  years  ago  the  Princi- 
pality was  unique  among  the  States  of  the  world  in  that 
it  possessed  no  public  conveyances  of  any  kind.  But 
Austria-Hungary  here  again  stepped  in,  and  agreed  to 
pay  a  subsidy  of  8,000  gulden  {£666  13s.  4d.)  a  year 
towards  the  expenses  of  a  diligence  for  mails  and 
passengers  between  Cattaro  and  Cetinje.  The  arrival 
and  departure  of  the  two  vehicles  which  perform  this 
duty  are  now  events  of  every  day  at  Cetinje,  and  the 
drivers  show  that,  if  the  Montenegrins  can  shout  like 
the  war-god  in  Homer,  they  can  also  tootle  on  the  horn 
in  a  manner  not  unworthv  of  the  White  Horse  Cellars. 

68 


in   the   Near   East 

But  paternal  government  has  left  a  curious  mark  upon 
the  rules  and  regulations  of  the  diligence.  Article  13  of 
this  document  provides  "That  the  traveller  is  entitled  to 
the  seat  marked  upon  his  ticket,  but  the  respect  due  by 
the  young  to  the  old  requires  that  the  former  should 
always  yield  the  best  places  to  their  seniors."  Of  his 
postal  arrangements  the  Prince  has,  indeed,  every  reason 
to  be  proud.  Montenegro  earlv  joined  the  Postal  Union, 
and  her  Post  Office  is  well  managed,  and  in  every 
respect  the  opposite  of  the  miserable  Turkish  postal 
arrangements.  There  is  a  telegraph  to  all  the  principal 
places  in  the  country,  and  telegrams  are  not,  as  so  often 
happens  in  Turkey,  delayed  a  week  in  transmission.  I 
once  sent  from  Santi  Quaranta,  a  place  which  has  since 
gained  European  notoriety  from  its  bombardment  by 
the  Greek  fleet  in  the  war  of  last  year,  a  telegram  to 
Scutari  in  Albania,  asking  for  some  horses  to  be  sent  to 
the  little  Albanian  port  of  Medua.  I  arrived  at  Medua 
on  the  following  evening,  only  to  find  no  horses  there, 
and  was  subsequentlv  informed  that  my  message  had  not 
been  received  for  six  days  after  its  despatch.  But  such 
things  do  not  happen  at  Cetinje.  The  postmaster  is  a 
most  artistic  person,  about  as  different  as  possible  in 
appearance  from  all  one's  ideas  of  what  a  postmaster 
should  be.  Gigantic  in  stature  even  for  a  Montenegrin, 
he  always  wears  the  national  costume  and  lays  his  revolver 
down  on  his  desk  as  he  postmarks  your  letters.  To  the 
philatelic  mania  of  the  day  Montenegro  has  contributed 
two  sets  of  Jubilee  stamps  and  envelopes,  one  on  the 
four  hundredth  anniversary  of  the  foundation  of  the  first 
Slavonic  printing-press,  the  other  on  the  Bicentenary  of 
the  dynasty.  But  the  latter  issue,  picturesque  as  it  is, 
did  not  realise  the  anticipated  profit,  and  was  only  a 
month  in  actual  circulation,  owing  to  the  prejudice  of 
the  best  dealers  against  commemoration  stamps.    Another 

69 


Travels  and   Politics 

enterprise,  the  steamship  service  on  the  Lake  of  Scutari, 
which  is  partly  in  Montenegro  and  partly  in  Turkey,  is, 
curiously  enough,  in  the  hands  of  an  "Anglo-Monte- 
negrin Trading  Company,"  established  by  a  Mr,  Hammer 
a  few  years  ago,  and  shows  each  year  an  increase  in 
the  number  of  passengers  and  the  quantity  of  goods 
which  it  carries.  Every  now  and  again  there  is  talk  of 
a  railway  in  Montenegro.     Article  29  of  the  Berlin  Treaty 


POSTMASTER     AND     LANDLORD. 
(From  a  Photo,  by  Miss  ChadivicU.) 


contemplated  the  construction  of  a  line  round  the  bay 
of  Antivari  in  conjunction  with  Austria-Hungary,  and 
a  few  years  ago  there  were  rumours,  revived  at  the 
Bicentenary,  of  a  Decauville  railway.  Other  more  am- 
bitious schemes  have  at  times  been  evolved  from  the 
brains  of  Servian  politicians,  anxious  to  connect  the  two 
Serb  States  together.  But,  as  the  Finance  Minister  said 
to  me,  "It  is  no  use  to  make  railways  in  Montenegro, 
a    country  with    a    population  of    under    300,000    souls, 

70 


in   the   Near   East 

because  of  its  small  trade."  A  Montenegrin  line  would 
not  pay,  and  at  present  what  is  much  more  needed  is  an 
extension  of  roads  into  the  eastern  half  of  the  Princi- 
pality. There  virgin  forests  still  await  the  woodman's 
axe,  which  can  only  be  wielded  with  profit  when  some 
means  of  transport  is  provided  for  the  wood. 

It  was  expected  after  the  cession  of  the  ports  of 
Antivari  and  Dulcigno  to  the  Black  Mountain  that 
there  would  be  a  considerable  development  of  Monte- 
negrin trade  through  these  outlets  to  the  sea.  "  Give  us 
a  port,"  used  to  be  the  cry  of  the  landlocked  moun- 
taineers, "  and  we  shall  go  ahead."  But  neither  of  these 
openings  on  to  the  Adriatic  has  come  up  to  expectations. 
Both  are  exposed  to  the  north  and  west,  and  Dulcigno  in 
particular  is  a  mere  open  roadstead,  where  the  waves  beat 
restlessly  against  the  rocks  and  foam  in  and  out  of  the 
caves,  above  which  the  old  Venetian  town  stands  in 
picturesque  dignity.  Eighteen  years  ago  this  old  pirate 
stronghold  made  a  wholly  disproportionate  noise  in 
Europe  by  reason  of  the  famous  Dulcigno  demonstra- 
tion ;  but  Count  Beust's  witticism,  Dulcigno  far  nieiite, 
has  certainly  proved  to  have  a  great  deal  of  truth  about 
it.  A  distinguished  ecclesiastic,  "  sent  away  from 
Bosnia,"  as  he  expressed  it,  "  for  political  reasons,  and 
now  living  at  Dulcigno  as  a  pensioner  of  Russia  and 
Montenegro,"  dilated  to  me  when  I  was  there  on  the 
desirability  of  building  a  mole  across  the  mouth  of  Val 
di  Noce,  a  prettily  wooded  bay  between  Dulcigno  and 
Antivari,  where  a  small  but  safe  haven  could  be  formed. 
But  here  again  the  eternal  question  of  funds  would  arise, 
and  a  similar  difficulty  would  prevent  the  erection  of  a 
breakwater  at  Antivari.  Besides,  the  latter  bay  is  com- 
manded by  the  Austrian  position  at  Spizza,  the  place 
which  was  awarded  to  Montenegro  at  San  Stefano  but 
given  to  Austria  at   Berlin.     Spizza  is  not  otherwise  of 

7' 


Travels  and   Politics 

much  importance,  though  it  looks  very  picturesque  with 
the  old-world  fortress  on  the  hill  behind  it  and  a  twin 
fortress  on  the  right-hand  side  of  the  harbour,  but  its 
strategical  value  makes  its  loss  rankle  in  the  mind  of  the 
Prince.  Probably,  for  this  reason,  little  has  been  done 
by  the  Montenegrins  with  the  bay  of  Antivari  ;  besides, 
Montenegro  is  debarred  by  the  Berlin  Treaty  from  having 
a  fleet,  and  the  yacht  Jaroslav,  which  the  late  Tsar  gave 
the  Prince,  was  a  white  elephant,  and  had  to  be  returned. 
But  recently  this  port  has  attained  to  considerable 
notoriety  as  the  landing-place  for  those  distinguished 
guests  who  wish  to  visit  Cetinje  without  the  etiquette  of 
a  formal  reception  by  the  Austrian  authorities  at  Cattaro. 
Indeed,  had  the  ruler  of  Montenegro  been  easily  tempted 
by  cash,  this  silent  bay,  on  whose  shores  the  Prince's  villa, 
the  post-office,  and  a  couple  of  steamship  agencies  are 
almost  the  sole  dwellings — for  the  ruinous  town  of  Anti- 
vari is  two  miles  inland,  and  remains  much  as  it  was  after 
the  cannonade  of  the  last  war — might  have  blossomed 
out  into  a  second  Monaco.  For  some  years  ago  a  body 
of  speculators  approached  the  Prince  on  the  subject  of 
building  a  casino,  but  his  Highness  retorted  that  he  was 
Prince  of  Montenegro,  and  had  no  wish  to  become 
Prince  of  Monte  Carlo,  so  the  matter  dropped.  Antivari 
is,  however,  the  nearest  port  to  Bari  in  Italy,  with  which 
there  is  steamship  communication,  and  since  the  Italian 
marriage  there  has  been  an  increased  traffic  by  this  route. 
In  order,  too,  to  encourage  the  Austrian-Lloyd  and 
Italian  steamers,  which  call  there,  the  Montenegrin 
Government  allows  them  a  considerable  reduction  on 
tonnage  dues.  Another  difficulty  in  the  way  of  Monte- 
negrin commerce  is  the  constant  blocking  up  of  the  river 
Bojana,  which  forms  the  effluent  of  the  Lake  of  Scutari. 
This  is  in  Turkish  hands,  and  when  it  becomes  choked, 
as  it  does  every  winter,  the  lake  rises  and  floods  not  only 

72 


in  the  Near   East 

Scutari,  but  the  Montenegrin  districts  at  the  other  end  of 
this  huge  sheet  of  water,  the  largest  in  the  Balkan 
Peninsula.  Diplomatic  notes  are  periodically  sent  by 
the  one  party,  and  promises  periodically  received  from 
the  other,  but  the  state  of  things  continues  much  as 
before. 

Trade,  indeed,  in  Montenegro  must  always  remain 
small,  partly  because  of  the  natural  dislike  of  the  natives 
to  business,  and,  even  if  that  were  overcome,  owing  to 
the  natural  poverty  of  the  country  as  a  whole.  "  When 
God  made  the  world,"  says  a  Serb  maxim,  "  the  bag  which 
contained  the  stones  burst,  and  the  stones  all  fell  upon 
Montenegro."  Large  parts  of  the  Principality  resemble 
nothing  so  much  as  a  vast  sea  of  stones,  a  veritable 
steiiienies  Mccr,  in  which  here  and  there  a  tiny  islet 
appears  in  the  shape  of  a  minute  patch  of  corn,  little 
larger  than  a  tablecloth.  The  "new  Montenegro,"  which 
was  added  to  the  Principality  after  the  last  war,  is  more 
fertile,  but,  as  we  have  seen,  is  still  largely  undeveloped — 
and  whence  is  the  capital  to  come  to  develop  it  ?  For  in 
Montenegro  a  man  is  *'  passing  rich  "  on  ^"50  a  year,  and 
what  he  can  afford  to  spend  he  spends  on  his  clothes  and 
his  weapons.  Podgorica  is  the  only  place  where  any 
real  trade  can  be  said  to  exist,  for  Cetinje  is  entirely  a 
town  of  officials.  The  work,  too,  being  largely  done  by 
women,  except  in  the  case  of  the  Albanians,  who  live  in 
the  country,  and  those  Dalmatians  who  have  settled 
there,  is  not  such  as  it  might  be  if  the  men  put  their 
shoulders  to  the  wheel.  Successive  years  show  no 
improvement  in  the  commerce  of  the  country,  though  I 
have  met  Montenegrins  who  have  been  sent  to  Marseilles 
to  study  commercial  matters.  Austria- Hungary  has,  of 
course,  the  lion's  share  of  the  imports,  but  since  the 
establishment  of  the  ''  Anglo-Montenegrin  Trading  Com- 
pany "  Great   Britain  has  done  better  than  before,  and 

73 


Travels  and   Politics 

easily  occupies  the  second  place,  other  nations  being 
practically  nowhere.  Were  more  attention  paid  to  the 
preparation  of  tobacco,  which  grows  well  in  some  parts 
of  the  Principality,  and  is  usually  bought  up  by  the 
Austrian  Regie,  much  better  results  might  be  achieved  ; 
and  flea-powder  is  so  necessary  in  many  parts  of  the 
Near  East  that  that  commodity,  which  is  one  of  Monte- 
negro's staple  exports,  should  command  a  wide  sale.  But 
here,  at  any  rate,  there  is  little  prospect  of  "new  markets" 
for  British  philanthropists ;  for  even  her  ammunition, 
like  so  much  else,  Montenegro  receives  gratis  from  the 
benevolence  of  Russia,  while  the  natives  have  a  prefer- 
ence for  slii'Oi'ic  over  our  alcoholic  liquors. 

Prince  Nicholas  in  conversation  with  Englishmen 
naturally  avoids  unnecessary  reference  to  his  close 
friendship  with  Russia,  and  I  do  not  believe  that  he 
would  for  a  moment  accept  the  position  of  a  Russian 
governor.  But  the  Montenegrins  are  warm  admirers  of 
most  things  Russian,  and  in  their  houses  and  inns  you 
will  see  pictures  of  the  Tsar  and  Tsaritsa  side  by  side  with 
those  of  the  Gospodar  and  his  consort.  No  one  can 
deny  that  Russia  has  done  a  great  deal  for  the  Black 
Mountain,  and  perhaps  the  fact  that,  in  the  words  of  the 
Serb  proverb,  ''  The  clouds  are  high  and  the  Tsar  a  long 
way  off,"  makes  the  Montenegrins  more  zealous  for  Russia 
than  they  might  be  if  they  were,  say,  in  the  geographical 
position  of  Roumania,  or  even  Bulgaria.  Into  the 
precise  pecuniary  relations  of  the  two  "friends"  it  is 
impossible  to  enter,  because,  among  other  advantages  of 
autocracy,  the  Prince  has  not  to  publish  a  budget,  and 
can  therefore  keep  his  financial  concerns  to  himself. 
But  it  is  generally  understood  that  the  Principality 
receives  annual  subventions  from  the  Tsar,  who  is  also 
said  to  have  provided  a  considerable  sum  for  the  dowry 
of   the    Montenegrin  Princess,  whom  rumour  at  one  time 

74 


in   the   Near   East 

had  marked  out  for  his  own  bride.  One  of  the  most 
unquahtied  benefits  which  the  Russian  Imperial  family, 
has  conferred  on  the  Principality  is  the  Russian  Institute, 
a  long  building  to  the  right  of  the  hotel,  where  an  accom- 
plished Russian  lady  is  training  up  sixty  girls,  the  largest 
number  yet  known  in  the  history  of  the  institution. 
About  half  of  these  pupils  are  natives  of  the  Principality  ; 
the  others  come  mostly  from  Dalmatia  and  tlie  Herce- 
govina.  But  I  saw  one  Albanian  girl  among  them,  one 
student  from  Odessa,  and  one  from  Port  Said.  They  all 
sleep  on  the  premises,  and  their  dormitories  and  class- 
rooms, which  the  lady  superintendent  showed  me,  are 
beautifully  clean.  The  education  is  so  good  that  the 
daughters  of  our  minister  received  their  early  training 
there,  and  indeed  this  is  one  of  the  subjects  in  which 
the  Prince  takes  a  keen  interest.  He  was  himself 
educated  in  Paris,  but  holds  that  it  is  better  to  bring  up 
Montenegrins  in  Montenegro,  in  which  he  is  probably 
right.  He  has  accordingly  had  his  own  family  most 
carefullv  educated  at  home,  and  provides  good  elementary 
schools  for  his  subjects  in  most  parts  of  the  country.  It 
is  a  curious  sight  to  see  the  Montenegrin  schoolmaster, 
who  is  not  in  the  least  like  any  other  pedagogue  in  the 
world,  instructing  his  class  in  geography  and  writing. 
Their  maps  and  their  copy-book  headings  about  their 
sovereign  do  them  credit,  and  a  merrier  or  brighter  set  of 
lads  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  than  these  children  of 
the  Black  Mountain.  No  university  exists  in  the  country, 
and  higher  education  must  be  sought  at  Belgrade.  But 
Cetinje,  small  as  it  is,  possesses  a  good  public  reading- 
room  in  the  same  building  as  the  theatre,  where  the 
warriors  in  their  superabundant  leisure  devour  the  news- 
papers of  the  Servian  and  Russian  capitals,  as  well  as  the 
two  organs  which  now  compose  the  Press  of  the  Princi- 
pality.    Sometimes,  too,  the   Prince  provides  them   with 

75 


Travels  and   Politics 


literature  in  the  shape  of  a  new  poem  of  his  own,  printed 
in  letters  of  gold,  and  the  eight  battle-songs  which  he 
composed  for  the  eight  battalions  of  the  new  regular 
uvmY  were  as  much  admired  as  the  famous  ode  to  the 
sea  which  he  wrote  when  his  st.uidards  for  the  tirst  time 
waved  on  the  shore  of  Antivari's  beautiful  bay,  where  a 
heap  of  Turkish  cannon-balls  and  cannon,  one  of  which 


M()XTENK(,R1\    BOYS. 
(Frjin  a  Photo,  by  Mr.  C.  A.  .Milh-r.) 

once  saw  Sebastopol,  still  bear  testimony  to  his  prowess  in 
the  last  war. 

Most  visitors  to  Montenegro  turn  back  when  they  have 
reached  Cetinje,  and  have  therefore  little  idea  of  the 
beauties  of  Montenegrin  scenery  bevond  the  superb 
views  which  they  enjoy  along  the  road  to  the  capital.  I 
have,  indeed,  seen  few  sights  which  can  compare  with  the 
panorama  of  the  Bocche  di  Cattaro  as  one  mounts  the 
serpentine  and   beholds  one  fiord  after  another  opening 

76 


in   the    Near   East 

out  far  below  one.  But  the  country  beyond  Cetinje  has 
charms  too  of  its  own.  To  comprehend  the  full 
fascination  of  this  limestone  wilderness,  one  must  walk 
or  ride  through  it  by  moonlight.  Then  the  gaunt  rocks 
assume  the  most  fantastic  shapes.  At  one  moment  one 
seems  to  be  approaching  a  populous  town  or  a  ruined 
castle  ;  and  then,  as  one  draws  nearer,  one  perceives  that 
the  town  is  merely  a  vast  mass  of  white  rocks  and  the 
castle  nothing  but  a  crannied  clit^".  In  springtime,  too, 
the  bright  green  foliage  relieves  the  monotony  of  the 
limestone,  and  shows  that  even  in  Montenegro  trees  will 
grow.  From  the  Belvedere,  a  picturesque  summer-house, 
built  at  a  corner  of  the  road,  about  twenty  minutes  beyond 
Cetinje,  there  is  a  splendid  view  of  the  blue  lake  of  Scutari, 
stretching  far  away  in  the  distance,  with  the  old  Montene- 
grin capital  of  Zabliak  perched  on  a  hill  in  the  foreground 
and  the  snow-capped  Albanian  mountains  bounding  the 
horizon.  From  here  the  road  winds  down  to  Rjeka,  a 
little  town  beautifully  situated,  as  its  name,  "  the  river," 
implies,  upon  a  stream  which  is  famous  for  its  fish. 
These  fish,  called  in  Italian  scoraiige,  are  considered 
great  delicacies,  and  form  one  of  the  principal  exports  of 
Montenegro.  It  was  near  this  picturesque  place  that  the 
first  book  in  the  Slavonic  language  was  printed,  and  the 
monastery  is  one  of  the  oldest  in  the  country.  Having 
obtained  candles  and  a  guide,  we  ascended  the  stony  valley 
of  the  Rjeka  and  penetrated  the  vast  underground  cavern 
from  which  that  river  issues.  After  we  had  been  climb- 
ing for  about  half  an  hour  over  the  huge  boulders  of  rock 
which  form  the  floor  of  the  cavern,  we  arrived  on  the 
shore  of  an  underground  lake,  similar  to  that  over  which 
visitors  to  the  salt-mines  near  Berchtesgaden  are  ferried 
by  the  glare  of  pine  torches.  If  Montenegro  should  ever 
become  a  haunt  of  tourists,  the  grotto  of  Rjeka,  with  its 
fine  stalactites  and  its  infernal  lake,  will  make  the  fortune 

77 


Travels  and   Politics 

of  some  Montenegrin  Charon.  It  is  unfortunate  that  a 
place  so  beautifully  situated  as  Rjeka  should,  like  Antivari, 
be  unhealthy  and  malarious  in  summer,  though  in  winter 
it  is  patronised  by  the  Prince  as  an  agreeable  change  from 
the  cold  of  the  capital. 

From  Rjeka,  which  boasts  of  a  very  fair  inn,  we  drove 
for  four  hours  to  Podgorica  along  a  wild  and  desolate 
desert  of  rocks  which  soon  becomes  almost  as  trying  to 
the  eye  as  the  brilliant  glare  of  an  Athenian  street  or  the 
dazzling  whiteness  of  a  Swiss  glacier.  Presently  we 
descended  into  the  plain  in  which  Podgorica,  the  largest 
town  in  the  Principality,  is  situated.  By  position 
Podgorica  is  destined  to  become  on  a  small  scale  the 
Manchester  of  Montenegro.  It  is  connected  by  an  excel- 
lent road  with  the  Lake  of  Scutari,  and  lies  in  a  sheltered 
situation,  as  its  name  implies,  "at  the  foot  of  a  hill." 
Ceded  to  Montenegro  by  the  Turks  after  the  last  war,  it 
still  retains  the  appearance  of  a  Turkish  town.  In  the 
old  quarter  may  still  be  seen  ancient  Turkish  houses,  with 
their  latticed  windows  and  rambling  balconies,  while  the 
chief  mosque  has  a  beautifully  carved  doorway.  All  day 
the  bazaar  in  the  main  street  is  full  of  people,  for  the 
population  of  Podgorica  is  about  6,000,  and  politics  and 
commerce  are  eagerly  discussed.  In  former  times  the 
town  was  the  scene  of  many  skirmishes,  and  the  fine 
bridge  over  the  river  outside  it  was  particularly  noted  in 
the  annals  of  this  border  -  warfare.  "  1V0//5  somincs 
toujours  en  guerre,"  said  a  native  to  me,  and  the  remark 
exactly  expressed  the  conditions  of  life  at  Podgorica  some 
years  ago.  Even  now  the  Prince  is  said  to  look  upon  an 
occasional  frontier  incident  as  good  for  public  morals. 
Disputes  not  unfrequently  arise  out  of  rights  of  pasture 
which  have  been  greatly  complicated  by  the  absurd 
delimitations  of  the  Turco-Montenegrin  boundary  subse- 
quently to  the  Treaty  of   Berlin.     The   Boundary  Com- 

78 


in   the   Near   East 

missioners  so  drew  the  frontier  in  some  places  that  a 
man's  cottage  was  in  one  country  and  his  back-garden  in 
another,  and  a  journey  to  cut  a  cabbage  was  sometimes 
followed  by  unfortunate  results,  for  so  long  as  an  Albanian 
has  cartridges  he  feels  it  his  duty  to  use  them,  and  thinks 
as  little  of  taking  the  life  of  a  man  as  that  of  a  pig.  The 
Montenegrins  are  naturally  ready  for  a  light,  and  these 
quarrels  are  greatly  complicated  by  the  survival  of  the 
blood-feud  as  a  leading  institution  of  Albania.  In  Monte- 
negro the  Prince's  predecessor  stamped  it  out  by  his 
extraordinary  firmness,  and  succeeded,  at  the  cost  of 
considerable  unpopularity,  in  convincing  his  people  that 
it  was  the  business  of  the  law  and  not  of  the  individual 
to  punish  the  murderer.  But  in  Albania,  despite  the 
religious  exhortations  recently  addressed  by  the  Sultan  to 
the  Albanian  chiefs,  the  blood-feud  remains  unchecked, 
and  when  once  it  has  begun  the  only  method  of  stopping 
it  is  for  both  parties  to  meet  on  the  banks  of  a  stream  and 
throw  stones  into  the  water  corresponding  to  the  number 
of  the  slain.  The  flat  ground  outside  Podgorica  produces 
a  good  deal  of  corn,  for  wherever  the  Montenegrin  women 
can  snatch  a  few  yards  from  the  rocks  they  will  turn 
them  to  good  use.  The  fish,  fresh  from  the  river,  were 
very  fine  and  large,  and  it  seems  a  pity  that  this  country 
is  so  neglected  by  the  British  angler.  But  the  most 
interesting  feature  of  the  neighbourhood  is  the  old 
Roman  town  of  Dioclea,  which  claims  to  be  the  birth- 
place of  Diocletian,  and  is  about  a  mile  beyond  Pod- 
gorica, in  the  angle  of  two  rivers.  A  considerable  part  of 
the  ancient  remains  has  been  excavated,  and  the  site  is 
well  worth  a  visit,  not  merely  from  its  Roman  associa- 
tions, but  because  it  was  once  the  capital  of  the  old 
kingdom  of  Dioclea,  which  played  a  considerable  part  in 
the  Balkan  history  of  the  Middle  Ages.  From  Dioclea 
we  drove  along  through  a  beautiful  avenue  of  tiowering 

79 


Travels  and   Politics 

acacias  up  the  fertile  valley  of  the  Zeta  to  the  busy  little 
town  of  Danilovgrad.  Travellers  wiio  have  only  seen  the 
western  part  of  the  Principality  have  no  idea  that  Monte- 
negro contains  any  fertile  district,  but  the  vale  of  the 
Zeta  is  rich  in  corn  and  vines,  and  the  oak  is  once  more 
visible  on  the  hills.  Before  the  last  extension  of  territory 
this  beautiful  valley  was  the  weak  point  of  Montenegro 


,  ,     ^    0i^^'^    Y. 


'^^%M 


DAXILOVGKAO. 
(From  a  Photo,  by  Mr.  C.  A.  Milla.) 


from  a  military  aspect.  It  was  here,  if  anywhere,  that  the 
mountain  fastness  was  vulnerable  ;  for  prior  to  the  Berlin 
Treaty  it  was  only  about  fifteen  miles  across  from  the 
Turkish  territory  on  one  side  to  the  Turkish  territory  on 
the  other,  so  that  the  eastern  and  western  halves  of  the 
Principality  could  be  cut  asunder,  and  the  usual  Turkish 
plan  of  campaign  was  to  despatch  simultaneously  one 
army  from  Albania  and  another  from  the  Hercegovina. 

80 


in   the    Near    p]ast 

Danilovgrad  was  alive  with  people  as  we  drove  up,  and 
the  open  space  between  the  shops  and  the  river  was 
crammed  with  rough-looking  peasants  from  far  and 
near  who  had  brought  their  flocks  and  herds  to  sell. 
There  were  wild  Albanians  clad  in  sheepskins,  with  the 
white  fez  which  is  the  badge  of  all  their  tribe  stuck  on 
their  shaven  heads.  There  were  shepherds  carrying  their 
lambs  on  their  should^i^rs,  and  goatherds,  the  meanness  of 
whose  dress  contrasted  strangely  with  the  richly  inlaid 
handles  of  their  pistols,  driving  their  goats  before  them. 
A  knot  of  thirty  soon  gathered  round  us  on  the  bridge  as 
we  stood  there  to  take  a  photograph  of  this  curious  scene, 
for  the  camera  is  not  yet  common  in  the  Black  jNIoun- 
tain.  Beyond  Danilovgrad  there  is  another  of  those 
curious  phenomena  of  which  the  Foiba  at  Pisino  is  so 
remarkable  an  example.  Here  the  river  Zeta  disappears 
beneath  the  mountain,  and  flows  in  a  subterranean 
channel  from  which  it  emerges  at  the  head  of  the  valley 
below  the  famous  monastery  of  Ostrog. 

This  ancient  monastery,  object  of  pious  veneration  to 
every  Montenegrin,  amply  repays  the  toil  of  climbing  and 
slipping  for  three  hours  over  the  sharp,  jagged  rocks 
which  are  by  a  polite  Action  described  as  a  bridle-path. 
Thither  once  a  year  the  sturdy  folk  of  the  Black  INIoun- 
tain  go  up,  prince  and  peasant  alike,  and  I  saw  Prince 
Nicholas  and  his  whole  Court  leave  Cetinje  in  a  procession 
of  five  modest  conveyances,  quite  in  keeping  with  the 
patriarchal  traditions  of  the  country.  For  the  monastery 
contains  the  bones  of  the  famous  Vladika,  or  Prince- 
Bishop  Basilus,  who  took  refuge  in  Montenegro  from 
the  Turks  some  time  in  the  seventeenth  century,  and 
lived  and  died  in  this  lonely  spot.  It  was  thundering 
and  lightning,  and  the  valley  of  the  Zeta  far  below  was 
hid  in  mist  as  we  arrived  at  the  lower  monastery — for 
there  are  two — one  on  a  rocky  plateau  on  the  mountain- 

8i  G 


Travels   and    Politics 

side,  the  other  in  a  cavern  of  the  chff,  half  an  hour  higher 
up.     A  ring  at  the   beh   was   quickly  answered,  and  we 
were  ushered  into  a  plainly  furnished   cell   by  a  youth 
without  shoes  or  stockings,  who  kissed  my  hand  and  after 
a  profound   bow  went  in   search   of  the  priest.     It  was 
extraordinary  to  notice  the  respect  which  the  holy  father 
evoked  when   he   entered  the  room.     Our  Montenegrin 
guide    went   down    upon   his   knees    and    did    obeisance 
before  him,  and  the  juvenile  attendant  proceeded  to  go 
through   a    series  of  extraordinary   antics  and   grimaces. 
He  bowed  and  scraped  and  crossed  himself,  and  saluted 
in  military  fashion,  running  about  the  room  all  the  while 
in  quest  of  refreshment  for  the  guests.     After  the  usual 
glass  of  brandy  and  cup  of  coffee  the  priest  asked  us  who 
we  were  and  whence  we  came  quite  in  the  Homeric  style. 
As  soon  as  the  thunderstorm  was  over  we  started  for  the 
upper   monastery,    which   we  could  just  see  protruding 
from  the  mouth  of  the  cavern  in  the  rock  several  hundred 
feet  above   us.     Arrived  at  the  entrance  of  this  remote 
hermitage,  we  knocked  at  the  gate,  and  a  venerable  man 
with  flowing  locks  of  snow-white  hair,  the  very  picture  of 
the  typical  man  of  God  in  the  old  stories,  came  down  the 
steps  to  greet  us  after  the  manner  of  the  early  Christians. 
He  kissed  us  on  both  cheeks,  to  our  great  embarrassment, 
and  then  led  us  by  the  hand  up  a  winding  stair  and  along 
a  stone  balcony  into  his  lonely  cell.     Refreshments  were 
at  once  produced,  and  the  hermit  taking  up  two  eggs 
dyed  crimson  like  the  pace-eggs  w'hich  we  still  see  in  the 
North  of  England  at   Easter,  gave  me  one  of  them  and 
requested   me   to   hold    it    in    my  hand   with    the    end 
upwards  ;  he  then  took  another  egg  himself,  and  having 
made  the  sign  of  the  cross  upon  his  forehead  and  mur- 
mured a  prayer  in  Serb,  he  struck  the  end  of  my  egg  with 
the  end  of  his.     Having  thus  cracked  one  end,  he  made 
me  turn  the  other  end  of  my  egg  upwards  and  repeated 


in   the    Near   East 

the  same  operation  with  the  other  extremity  of  his  own, 
after  which  he  peeled  my  egg  for  me  and  invited  me  to 
eat  it.      This  done,  he  led  me  by  the  hand  into  a  beautiful 
little  refectory  ornamented  with  coloured  portraits  of  the 
Prince,  the  late  Tsar  and  Tsaritza,  and  containing  a  well- 
spread   table    covered    with    Turkish    delight,    almonds, 
raisins,   prunes,   and  other  delicacies.     It  was  with    the 
greatest   pride    that  he    showed    me    the    books    of    the 
monastery,  some  of  them  being  among  the  earliest  pro- 
ductions of  the  Slavonic  printing  press  at   Kiev,  the  gift 
of  the  late  Tsar.     But  the  greatest  curiosity  next  to  the 
old  hermit  himself  had  been  reserved  to  the  last.     \\^ith 
much  solemnity  my  host  produced  a  huge  key  from  his 
pocket  and  led  me  by  the  hand  towards  the  chapel,  where 
repose  the  bones  of  the  saint.     The  chapel  is  hewn  out 
of  a  cavern  in  the  living  rock  and  the  roof  is  so  low  that 
it  is  just  possible  to  stand  upright  without  knocking  one's 
head.     One  side  is  occupied  by  a  large  chest  covered  by 
a  richly  ornamented  cloth,  which  the  old  priest  proceeded 
to  remove  with    reverent    hands.      The    box   was    soon 
unlocked,  and  on  the  lid  being  opened  I  perceived  the 
mortal  remains  of  the  Vladika  Basilus  lying  in  his  robes 
of  state.     The   body  was  entirely   covered    up,    but  the 
priest  permitted  me  to  see  the  feet  of  the  saint,  and  looked 
on  with  evident  gratification,  while  my  guide  went  down 
on   bended  knees  and  kissed  a  little  crucifix  which  lay 
inside  the  chest.     Then  the  lid  was  closed  and  we  made 
our  exit,  going  out  of  the  narrow  doorway  backwards  so 
as  to  avoid  turning  our   backs   upon   the  saintly  shrine. 
It  was  not  an  easy  performance,  but  as  the  priest  and  the 
guide  set   me  the  example    I   determined  to  go  through 
with   it.     Outside  in   the  rock  there  is  a  clear  spring  of 
water,  and,  strange  to  say,  a  tiny  patch  of  earth  about  six 
feet  square,  where  a  vine  has  been  planted  and  is  trained 
against  the  mountain-side.     A  quainter  spot  it  would  be 

83 


Travels  and   Politics 

difficult  to  imagine,  and  it  has  more  than  once  proved  a 
place  of  refuge  for  the  Montenegrins  in  time  of  trouble. 
Again  and  again  the  Turks  have  beseiged  Ostrog  and  on 
one  occasion  30,000  of  them  encompassed  it  for  several 
months  without  success.  The  attacks  from  the  valley 
below  were  easily  repulsed  ;  the  stones  hurled  down  from 
the  rocks  above  glanced  off  the  sloping  roof  of  the  cave 
into  the  ravine  far  beneath,  and  although  it  was  defended 
by  only  thirty  Montenegrins  the  enemy  had  to  retire.  In 
more  recent  times  the  Grand  l^oi'voclc  Mirko,  father  of 
the  Prince,  held  this  natural  fortress  with  only  twenty-six 
men,  and  his  defence  of  the  place  and  his  subsequent 
march  to  Cetinje  with  the  loss  of  only  one  soldier,  after 
emerging  from  the  cavern  "  as  black  as  a  coal "  are 
favourite  themes  with  his  son.  In  the  last  war,  how- 
ever, the  Turks  captured  the  cavern  and  set  fire  to  the 
monastery  below. 

Bidding  goodbye  to  the  old  priest  we  set  out  for  the 
pass  in  the  mountains  where  our  carriage  was  to  meet  us 
and  take  us  on  to  Niksic,  where  the  road  ends.  The 
bridge  over  the  river  had  been  washed  away,  so  that  we 
had  to  take  the  horses  out  and  make  them  swim  the 
stream,  while  our  driver  shouted  across  the  river  for  a 
raft.  The  distance  for  which  a  Montenegrin's  voice  will 
carry  is  most  extraordinary,  and  some  years  ago  when  a 
murder  was  committed  not  very  far  from  the  Austrian 
frontier  the  whole  army  was  mobilised  in  a  couple  of 
hours  by  means  of  scouts,  who  shouted  from  one  cliff  to 
arouse  their  comrades  on  the  next,  with  the  result  that 
the  miscreants  were  caught  before  they  could  escape  over 
the  border.  Niksic,  I  think,  has  a  future  before  it.  The 
natural  advantages  of  its  position  in  a  broad  and  well- 
watered  plain  would  make  it  a  better  capital  than  Cetinje, 
which  is  much  less  central  and  has  a  much  colder  climate 
in  winter.    For  some  years  past  there  has  been  talk  of  trans- 

84 


in   the   Near   East 

ferring  the  seat  of  government  thither,  but  the  obstacle 
of  expense  has  hitherto  proved  insurmountable  ;  besides, 
until  a  carriage-road  is  constructed  clown  to  the  Austrian 
frontier,  from  which  a  tolerable  track  has  been  made  to 
the  port  of  Risano,  the  trade  of  Niksic  cannot  be  deve- 
loped, for  at  present  everything  has  to  be  transported  on 
the  backs  of  mules  over  a  mountain  path.  The  capture 
of  the  place  from  the  Turks  in  the  last  war  after  a  four 
months'  siege,  conducted  by  the  Prince  in  person,  was 
considered  a  great  feat  of  strategy,  and  his  Highness  is 
fond  of  talking  about  his  "Homeric  battles"  under  its 
walls.  By  its  acquisition  and  that  of  Podgorica  the  keys 
of  both  ends  of  the  Zeta  valley  have  been  placed  in  his 
hands.  The  old  Turkish  fortifications  are  now  in  ruins, 
and  the  Mussulman  population  is  gradually  disappear- 
ing, while  a  large  new  church,  the  biggest  in  the 
whole  Principality,  is  a  sign  of  the  new  order  of 
things. 

The  ride  from  Niksic  to  the  sea  is  extremely 
fatiguing  ;  for  ten  hours  we  were  in  the  saddle — 
a  Turkish  one — only  stopping  for  a  cup  of  coffee 
and  a  glass  of  cognac  at  a  miserable  han.  One  of 
the  Prince's  perianiks  accompanied  us  as  far  as  the 
frontier,  and,  like  a  true  Montenegrin,  preferred  to  stride 
over  the  rocks  instead  of  riding.  For  miles  and  miles  on 
every  side  there  was  not  a  house,  and  scarcely  a  tree  to 
be  seen.  Everywhere  the  eye  fell  upon  the  eternal  grey 
rocks,  which  seemed  to  stretch  to  infinity.  The  path, 
such  as  it  was,  consisted  of  loose  stones  and  went  on 
and  on  through  a  succession  of  valleys  and  rocky 
basins.  Then  we  reached  the  summit  of  the  pass 
and  could  see  the  stony  desert  of  the  Hercegovina,  far 
away  on  the  right.  Emerging  from  a  deep  and  rocky 
ravine,  down  which  the  horses  scrambled,  slipping  at 
almost  every  step,  we  saw  before  us  the  plain  of  Grahovo, 

85 


Travels  and  Politics  in  the  Near  East 

the  Waterloo  of  Montenegro.  Thence  to  the  Austrian 
frontier  is  a  short  ride,  and  next  day  we  traversed  the 
mountains  of  the  Krivosije,  whose  warhke  inhabitants 
gave  the  soldiers  of  the  Monarchy  so  much  trouble  thirty 
years  ago.  Nestling  at  the  foot  of  these  mountains,  now 
crowned  with  many  a  fort,  we  saw  the  town  of  Risano 
reflected  in  the  waters  of  the  Bocche  di  Cattaro. 


86 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  MODEL  BALKAN  STATE  :  BOSNL\  AND  THE 
HERCEGOVINA 

WHEN,  at  the  eighth  sitting  of  the  Berlin  Congress, 
Lord  Sahsbiiry  proposed  that  Austria- Hungary 
should  occupy  the  Turkish  provinces  of  Bosnia  and  the 
Hercegovina,  a  new  era  was  opened  in  the  history  of  the 
Balkan  Peninsula.  Twenty  years  have  now  passed  away 
since  the  Berlin  Treaty  regulated  the  political  conditions 
of  South-Eastern  Europe,  but  of  the  various  arrange- 
ments then  made  the  most  remarkable  and,  as  subsequent 
events  have  shown,  the  most  successful  was  that  proposed 
by  the  second  British  plenipotentiary  and  embodied  in 
the  25th  Article  of  the  treaty.  The  experiment,  for 
such  it  was,  is  valuable,  not  only  for  its  own  sake 
but  also  because  it  is  calculated  to  serve  as  a  model 
for  the  future  guidance  of  statesmen  dealing  with  the 
Eastern  Question.  But  before  describing  what  has  been 
accomplished  under  the  auspices  of  Austria-Hungary  in 
so  comparatively  short  a  space  of  time,  it  may  be  well 
to  remind  the  Western  reader  of  the  initial  difticulties 
which  the  government  of  Bosnia  and  the  Hercegovina 
presented  in  1878. 

Of  all  the  Balkan  lands  that  passed  beneath  the  sway 
of  the  Turk,  Bosnia  and  the  Hercegovina  were  the  last 
to  be  conquered  and  the  least  amenable  to  the  adminis- 
tration of  the  Ottoman  authorities  at  Constantinople. 
The    social  condition  of   the  country  had   been   one  of 

«7 


Travels   and   Politics 


feiicUilisni  under  the  old  Bosnian  kingship,  whose  last 
representative  fell  in  1463  and  now  lies  a  grim  skeleton 
in    the    Franeiscan   Chureh    at   Jajce  ;    and    it    remained 


COFKIN    OF    LAST    BOSNIAN    KING. 

under  the  Turks  what  it  had  been  in  the  days  of 
Tvrtko  1.  and  his  successors.  The  sole  exception  was 
that  the    Bosnian  landowners  embraced,  as  a  rule,   the 

88 


in  the  Near  East 

creed  of  their  conquerors,  while  their  serfs  continued 
constant  to  the  Christian  faith.  Lord  Sahsbury  was 
therefore  historically  accurate  when  he  told  the  Congress 
that  these  were  "the  only  provinces  of  Turkey  where  the 
owners  of  the  soil  have,  almost  without  exception,  a 
different  creed  from  the  labourers."  Called  even  to  the 
present  day  in  popular  parlance  die  Turkcii,  the  Bosnian 
Mussulmans  are  m  reality  of  the  same  race  and  speech 
as  the  Bosnian  Christians  and  have  almost  to  a  man  little 
or  no  acquaintance  with  the  Turkish  language.  Like 
the  Pomaks  in  Mount  Rhodope  and  the  Greek  Moslems 
in  Crete,  they  had  religious  but  no  racial  affinities  with 
the  Turks  ;  yet,  as  is  usually  the  case  in  the  Near  East, 
the  ties  of  religion,  especially  when  that  religion  has 
been  adopted  with  the  zeal  of  a  convert,  counted  with 
the  Bosnian  Mohammedans  for  far  more  than  the  com- 
munity of  blood.  But  the  Bosnian  nobles  showed 
repeatedly,  as  the  Albanians  still  continue  to  do,  that 
they  had  no  intention  of  allowing  the  Sultan's  deputies 
to  interfere  with  their  privileges.  Geographical  and 
political  circumstances  tended  to  weaken  the  power  of 
the  Turkish  officials  and  to  strengthen  the  hands  of  the 
native  magnates.  The  mountainous  character  of  Bosiia 
ponosna,  or  "lofty  Bosnia,"  its  distance  from  Stambul, 
and  the  constant  changes  of  the  governors  sent  from 
headquarters,  whose  average  tenure  of  office  was  but 
twenty  months,  and  two  of  whom  were  actually  recalled 
before  they  had  ever  set  foot  in  the  countrv,  all  prevented 
a  complete  conquest  of  these  provinces.  In  a  highlv 
aristocratic  community  like  Bosnia,  the  head  of  an  old 
family  enjoyed  far  more  respect,  even  though  he  were 
poor,  than  an  upstart  from  Constantinople  who  had 
nothing  to  commend  him  but  his  ostentation  and  his 
office.  Now  and  again  we  hear  of  a  Turkish  governor, 
like    Usref,    the    conqueror    of   Jajce,    whose    word    was 

89 


Travels  and   Politics 

supreme  and  whose  religious  endowments  were  "  richer 
than  those  in  any  province  of  the  Empire."  But  the 
general  rule  was  that  the  native  nobles  were  the  re- 
positories of  power  while  the  Sultan's  representative  was 
a  mere  fleeting  figure,  here  to-day  and  gone  to-morrow. 
It  was  not  till  1850  that  the  Bosnian  magnates  were 
constrained  to  allow  the  Turkish  vali  to  fix  his  official 
residence  at  Sarajevo,  and  nowhere  did  the  well-meant 
reforms  of  Mahmud  II.  meet  with  such  stubborn 
resistance  as  from  the  fanatical  Bosnian  begs.  Bosnia 
might  be  "  the  lion  that  guards  the  gates  of  Stambul," 
but  it  was  a  lion  that  had  never  been  properly  tamed 
by  its  Turkish  master.  No  wonder,  then,  that  one  of  the 
Turkish  envoys,  finding  the  grapes  sour,  left  the  council- 
board  at  Berlin  with  the  remark  that  his  Government 
had  never  been  able  to  do  aught  with  Bosnia  and  the 
Hercegovina  during  its  415  years  of  sovereignty,  and 
that  no  one  else  could  manage  such  a  refractory  people. 
But  the  Austrians  speedily  and  triumphantly  falsified 
these  forebodings  of  failure.  The  task  of  carrying  out  the 
mission  of  the  Berlin  Congress  was  only  temporarily 
impeded  by  the  fanaticism  of  the  Bosnian  Mussulmans. 
Sarajevo,  after  a  desperate  resistance,  fell  into  the  hands 
of  the  Austrian  forces,  the  Hercegovina  was  soon  sub- 
dued, and  the  first  four  years  of  the  Occupation  sufficed 
to  put  an  end  to  the  reign  of  anarchy  which  four 
centuries  of  Turkish  rule  had  failed  wholly  to  quell.  In 
1882  Baron  von  Kallay  appeared  upon  the  scene,  and 
with  his  advent  the  period  of  constructive  work,  which 
has  gone  on  ever  since,  began  in  earnest. 

In  addition  to  the  Mussulman  element  of  the  popula- 
tion, the  Austro-Hungarian  Government  had  to  reckon 
with  two  distinct  parties  among  the  Christians  of  the 
country.  At  the  last  census,  held  in  1895,  the  whole 
population  amounted  to   1,568,092   of    which  42-94   per 

90 


in   the   Near   East 

cent,  were  Orthodox,  2i"3i  per  cent.  Koman  Catholics, 
and  34*9  per  cent.  Mussuhnans.  The  Orthodox  Serbs 
of  Bosnia  and  the  Hercegovina  had  racial  affinities  with 
Servia  and  Montenegro,  who  had  gone  to  war  against  the 
Turks  after  the  insurrection  of  1875,  and  who  expected 
territorial  compensation  as  the  reward  of  their  efforts. 
Stimulated  by  Servian  and  Montenegrin  journals,  these 
feelings  of  kindred  nationality  are  still  apt  to  influence 
those  who  prefer  the  barren  and  impracticable  glories 
of  the  "great  Servian  idea"  to  the  solid  material  advan- 
tages which  impartial  European  administration  alone 
can  bestow  upon  such  a  composite  country.  The  Roman 
Catholics,  on  the  other  hand,  who  had  long  looked  to 
Austria  for  aid  and  naturally  welcomed  her  advent  as 
that  of  a  great  Catholic  Power,  have  felt  somewhat 
disappointed  that  they,  who  form  little  more  than  a 
fifth  of  the  population,  have  not  been  allowed  to  act 
as  "  the  predominant  partner  "  in  the  Bosnian  firm.  To 
my  mind  there  can  be  no  better  proof  of  the  even-handed 
treatment  which  these  various  confessions  have  received 
from  the  Government,  than  that  such  disappointments 
should  be  felt.  Of  this  equality  of  religious  bodies  in 
the  eye  of  the  law  some  examples  may  be  given.  I 
witnessed  on  Corpus  Christi  Day,  in  front  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church  at  Mostar,  one  of  the  most  extraordinary 
gatherings  of  peasants  from  the  surrounding  villages 
that  can  be  conceived.  All  the  worshippers  appeared 
in  the  picturesque  garb  of  the  district,  and  the  whole 
enclosure  was  one  waving  mass  of  white,  which  swayed 
hither  and  thither  as  the  faithful  fell  upon  their  knees 
or  rose  from  their  prayers.  The  red,  white,  and  blue 
of  the  Croatian  flags  was  almost  universal,  and  the 
military  band  played  a  stave  of  the  Austrian  national 
anthem.  Yet  Mostar  is  one  of  the  three  strongest 
Moslem  centres  of   the    whole  country,   and   such    was 

91 


Travels  and  Politics  in  the  Near  East 

the  local  fanaticism  in  Turkish  times  that  down  to  the 
middle  of  the  present  century  the  Mussulmans  refused  to 
tolerate  a  Catholic  priest  in  their  town.  Now  the  Mostar 
Catholics  need  no  protection  at  their  devotions.  Again 
at  Reljevo,  near  Sarajevo,  I  was  present  at  the  annual 
examination  of  the  Orthodox  Training  College,  where 
young  Bosniaks,  assisted  b}-  Government  scholarships, 
are  educated  for  Holy  Orders.  The  old  Orthodox  Bishop 
of  Mostar  was  greatly  delighted  at  the  way  in  which  the 


CORPUS  CHRISTI   DAY  AT   MOSTAR. 
(From  a  Photo,  by  Miss  Cliadwick.) 


candidates  acquitted  themselves,  and  punctuated  their 
dissertations  on  Anglican  theology  and  the  Council  of  Bale 
with  exclamations  of  " Dobro,  dobro  !"  (''Good,  good  !  ") 
at  frequent  intervals.  The  Russian  press  is  fond  of  com- 
plaining that  the  Austro-Hungarian  authorities  interfere 
with  the  liberties  of  the  Orthodox  Church,  but  a  very 
marked  improvement  in  the  character  of  that  body  has 
been  perceptible  since  the  Occupation.  Prior  to  that 
date,  as  in  Bulgaria  before  the  finiiaii  of  1870,  the  eccle- 

92 


Travels  and  Politics  in  the  Near  East 

siastical  appointments  were  all  bought  and  the  bishops 
recouped  themselves  for  their  outlay  at  the  expense  of 
their  unfortunate  dioceses.  But  although  the  Orthodox 
Church  in  Bosnia  is  still  dependent  upon  the  authority 
of  the  Greek  Patriarch  at  Constantinople,  an  arrangement 
was  made  with  him  in  1879  by  which  his  nominations 
to  Bosnian  bishoprics  were  subject  to  the  approval  of  the 
Austrian  Emperor.  A  general  purification  of  religious 
life  and  a  higher  standard  of  theological  attainments 
liave  followed  this  change,  and  though  difficulties  some- 
times arise,  as  at  Mostar  last  year,  the  Orthodox  clergy 
is  yearly  becoming  better  educated — a  great  advantage 
in  an  Eastern  country  where  religion  plays  such  a  large 
part  in  all  the  relations  of  hfe.  The  Mussulmans,  too, 
enjoy  in  Bosnia  the  fullest  liberty  of  public  worship.  In 
almost  every  Bosnian  village  the  mosque  and  the  church 
may  be  seen  side  by  side,  and  the  muezzin  calls  the 
faithful  to  prayer  from  the  minaret  of  stone  or  wood, 
while  the  church  bell  invites  the  Christians  to  their 
devotions.  One  of  the  ornaments  of  the  capital  is  the 
beautiful  Sclieriatschiilc,  or  college  for  the  education  of 
Moslem  jurists,  which  was  erected  by  the  present  ad- 
ministration, where  young  Mohammedans  are  taught,  by 
teachers  of  their  own  religion,  the  Scheri,  or  Mussulman 
law,  and  the  Arabic  language.  Within  its  walls  there 
is  all  the  order  of  an  English  college,  each  student  has 
his  room  and  his  shelves  of  books  ;  a  tiny  mosque  opens 
out  of  the  fountained  courtyard,  and  a  dining-hall  is 
provided  for  the  general  use  of  the  students.  We  noticed 
that  forks  were  laid  upon  the  table — an  arrangement 
intended,  we  were  told,  to  familiarise  the  students  with 
"European"  table  manners,  because  they  were  fre- 
quently asked  out  to  dinner.  Close  to,  the  Mussulmans 
have  a  reading-room  of  their  own,  where  the  latest 
papers   from    Stambul    and    their    own    organs    in    the 

94 


Travels   and   Politics 

Bosnian  press  are  eagerly  devoured,  and  for  their  special 
convenience  the  Government  is  building  a  new  hotel 
at  Ilidze,  the  watering-place  of  Bosnia.  The  Austrians 
willingly  admitted  those  Turkish  officials,  who  entered 
their  service  at  the  outset,  to  fill  places  for  which  they 
were  qualified,  so  that  they  might  not  consider  them- 
selves badly  treated.  1  met  one  of  these  personages  in 
a  small  Bosnian  town,  who,  being  no  scholar,  had  been 
provided  with  a  sinecure  post  as  a  policeman,  and  enjoyed 
the  double  advantage  of  an  elegant  leisure  and  a  regular 
salarv.  The  administration  also  affords  its  Mohammedan 
employees  every  facility  for  making  the  pilgrimage  to 
Mecca,  and  eighty  to  a  hundred  Bosnian  pilgrims 
annually  set  out  on  the  sacred  journey  with  the  joyful 
conviction  that  on  their  return  they  will  be  regarded  by 
their  co-religionists  as  saints,  while  at  the  same  time  they 
will  be  reinstated  in  their  old  posts.  A  doctor  accom- 
panies the  pilgrims,  and  in  times  of  plague  I  have  seen 
messages  about  their  safety  arrive  in  the  Government 
offices  at  Sarajevo.  In  one  case,  where  a  minor  official 
had  disregarded  the  advice  of  his  superiors  and  had  sold 
all  tliat  he  possessed  in  order  to  make  the  pilgrimage, 
his  family  was  supported  by  them  until  his  return. 
In  the  Town  Council  at  Sarajevo,  the  members  of 
which  are  elected  in  proportion  to  the  numbers  of  the 
various  confessions,  there  are  twelve  Mussulmans,  and 
the  present  mayor,  Mehmed  Bey  Kapetanovic,  the  head 
of  one  of  the  oldest  Bosnian  families,  and  a  writer  and 
speaker  of  talent,  is,  like  his  predecessor,  a  Mussulman, 
while  his  deputy  is  an  Orthodox  Serb.  The  mayor,  who 
has  held  office  for  some  years,  has  won  considerable 
notoriety  by  his  collection  of  several  thousand  national 
proverbs  ;  and  a  recent  speech,  in  which  he  illustrated 
by  a  racy  anecdote  the  greater  security  of  life  and 
propertv    under  the  present  dispensation,  was  a  striking 

96 


in   the   Near   East 

tribute  to  the  Austro-Hungarian  administration.  F'inally, 
even  the  Protestants,  who  form  only  -23  of  the  whole 
population,  are  encouraged  by  the  Government,  which 
has  granted  a  good  site  and  made  a  substantial  contribu- 
tion for  a  Protestant  church  at  Sarajevo. 

The  Austrians  have  handled  the  delicate  question  of 
religious  education  with  great  tact.  There  are  in  Bosnia 
and  the  Hercegovina,  broadly  speaking,  two  classes  of 
schools — public  schools  supported  by  the  Government, 
for  all  confessions  alike,  where  instruction,  including 
school-books,  is  absolutely  free,  and  confessional  schools 
for  the  separate  religious  communities,  partly  supported 
by  the  State.  A  parent  is  not  compelled  to  send  his 
children  to  school  at  all,  but  arguments  are  used  by  the 
local  authorities  to  persuade  him  of  the  advantages  of 
education  should  he  desire  to  keep  his  offspring  ignorant. 
It  is  left  absolutely  at  the  discretion  of  the  parent  to 
choose  between  a  public  school,  where  his  child  will 
consort  with  children  of  other  creeds,  and  one  of  his  own 
religious  way  of  thought.  But  even  in  the  non-con- 
fessional schools  there  is  religious  instruction,  only  it  is 
given  to  the  Mussulman  children  by  Mussulman  liodzas, 
to  the  Orthodox  pupils  by  their  owji  Orthodox  divines, 
and  to  the  Catholic  boys  and  girls  by  Catholic  priests. 
Care,  too,  is  taken  to  respect  the  racial  prejudices  of  the 
Orthodox  Serbs.  Practically  the  only  difference  between 
the  Croatian  and  Serb  languages  is  the  script.  Both 
alphabets,  the  Latin  and  the  Cyrillic,  are  current  in  Bosnia  ; 
but  the  lesson-books  used  by  the  Orthodox  pupils  are 
printed  in  Cyrillic  letters,  and  those  studied  by  the  others 
in  the  ordinary  Latin  characters.  A  similar  motive  has 
led  to  the  invention  of  the  term  BosniscJi  for  the  language 
of  the  country,  so  as  not  to  offend  the  one  party  by 
calling  it  Croatian  or  the  other  by  describing  it  as  Serb. 
In  all  the  public  schools  the  native  tongue  is  the  vehicle 

97  H 


Travels   and   Politics 

of  instruction,  and  in  the  elementary  schools,  of  which 
there  are  i88,  the  subjects  taught  comprise  reading, 
writing,  arithmetic,  a  book  of  literary  extracts,  and  a 
short  compendium  of  Bosnian  history  down  to  the  time 
of  the  Occupation.  The  children,  so  a  very  experienced 
teacher  told  me,  are  very  fond  of  learning,  and  like  all 
the  Southern  Slavs  have  a  special  love  of  history,  which 
has  been  transmitted  from  generation  to  generation  in 
the  form  of  ballads.  As,  during  the  Turkish  times,  there 
was  little  or  no  secular  education,  and  even  the  well-to-do 
Moslems  had  to  send  their  children  to  the  Franciscan 
schools  to  be  taught,  many  of  the  older  people  are  unable 
to  read  and  write,  but  it  is  no  uncommon  thing  to 
find  them  learning  laboriously  with  their  children,  and 
begging  the  schoolmaster  to  lend  them  a  history  book 
to  study  at  home.  The  boys  usually  enter  the  public 
schools  at  seven  years  of  age,  and  remain  there  four  or 
five  years.  Their  studies  are  stimulated  by  prizes,  and  as 
an  instance,  the  master  of  a  school,  in  a  place  of  about 
four  thousand  inhabitants,  is  annually  allowed  40 
gulden  by  the  Government,  to  be  spent  on  prize  books. 
Four  classes  form  the  usual  division  of  both  the  boys' 
and  the  girls'  schools,  but  sometimes,  from  lack  of  space, 
the  four  are  reduced  to  two,  or  grouped  together.  Above 
the  elementary  schools  there  are  two  gymnasia,  one  at 
Sarajevo  and  the  other  at  Mostar,  a  Realschulc  at  Banja- 
luka,  a  technical  intermediate  school  and  institution  for 
the  training  of  male  and  female  teachers  at  Sarajevo,  the 
lack  of  whom  is  still  felt,  but  will  be  gradually  supplied 
as  time  goes  on.  A  military  school  for  boys  turns  out  a 
number  of  smart  lads,  who  are  one  of  the  features  of  the 
capital.  There  is  no  university  in  the  country,  for, 
warned  by  the  example  of  Greece,  the  Government  is 
desirous  not  to  flood  so  purely  agricultural  a  country 
with  a  host  of  highly  educated  men,  for  whom  there  is 

98 


in  the  Near  East 

little  or  no  opening,  and  who  would  inevitably  become 
discontented  members  of  society.  At  the  same  time 
promising  young  Bosniaks  are  sent  to  study  in  Vienna 
at  the  public  expense,  on  condition  that  they  abstain 
from  joining  political  associations.  This  desire  to  keep 
education  apart  from  politics  explains  the  selection  of 
Vienna  rather  than  Agram  for  this  purpose.  A  somewhat 
similar  policy — that  of  sending  the  natives  to  see  some- 
thing of  the  Monarchy — has  suggested  the  plan  of  posting 
Bosnian  regiments  at  Buda-Pesth,  Graz,  and  elsewhere  in 
Austria-Hungary.  This  system  is  more  expensive,  it  is 
true,  than  keeping  the  Bosnian  soldiers  at  home  ;  but  the 
Government  considers  that  the  broader  views  which  the 
Bosniaks  thus  acquire  are  well  worth  the  extra  cost.  As 
regards  the  confessional  schools,  I  may  cite  the  instance 
of  a  Serb  seminary  in  the  Hercegovina,  where  the 
children  showed  me  their  history  books,  which  con- 
tained a  complete  synopsis  of  Servian  history,  in  Cyrillic 
characters,  from  Stephen  Nemanja  down  to  Milan 
Obrenovic.  It  would  be  difficult  to  find  a  better  in- 
stance of  educational  liberty,  because  the  young  Serbs 
are  thus  permitted  by  the  Government  to  study  the 
history  of  that  "  Great  Servia  "  which  the  enemies  of  the 
Austrian  Occupation  desire  to  revive.  The  most  re- 
actionary party  in  educational  matters  is  composed  of 
the  Mohammedan  women,  who  usually  have  the  strongest 
objection  to  sending  their  daughters  to  school  with  the 
Christian  girls,  for  fear  lest  they  should  be  perverted  from 
those  strict  usages  of  Islam  which  are  nowhere  so  severely 
observed  as  in  Bosnia.  For  while  the  Bosnian  Mussul- 
mans are  more  conservative  than  those  of  other  countries, 
the  women  are  naturally  more  conservative  than  the  men. 
Here  veiling  is  practised  with  far  more  rigour  than  else- 
where in  the  Near  East,  and  the  contrast  with  Con- 
stantinople is  in  this  respect  most  striking.     Every  effort 

99 


Travels  and   Politics 


is  made  to  respect  these  customs,  and  at  Sarajevo  there 
is  a  special  school,  supported  by  the  Government,  for 
Mussulman  girls.  A  high  compliment  has  been  paid  to 
the  Bosnian  system  of  education  by  the  Prussian  Govern- 
ment, which  last  year  sent  one  of  its  inspectors  of  schools 
to  examine  and  report  upon  the  educational  system  of  the 
occupied  territory. 

It  will  thus  be  seen  that  the  aim  of  the  Government 
from  the  first  has  been  to  make  the  education  of  the 
people  thoroughly  practical  and  technical,  rather  than 
theoretical  and  literary.     To  my  mind  this  is  one  of  the 


A   MISSULMAX   WOMAN. 

(From  a  Photo,  by  Miss  Cliadicick.) 

chief  advantages  which  Bosnia  possesses  over  the  other 
Balkan  States.  Greece,  Servia,  and  to  a  less  extent  even 
the  "  peasant  State "  of  Bulgaria,  suffer  from  the  evil 
effects  of  too  much  higher  education,  and  too  little 
technical  training.  In  all  these  young  countries  farmers 
are  more  wanted  than  doctors  and  lawyers,  and  the 
greatest  danger  is  the  creation  of  a  Gelehiicn-prolctariat, 
which  takes  to  politics  as  a  means  of  getting  a  living. 

IQO 


in  the  Near  East 

Such  is  not  the  case  in  the  occupied  territory.  Here 
the  Austrians  have  sought  to  revive  native  industries,  and 
improve  native  art  on  hnes  not  divergent  from  the 
national  genius.  Next  year  Londoners  will  have  an 
opportunity  of  judging  for  themselves  at  the  Bosnian 
Exhibition,  which  is  to  be  held  at  Earl's  Court,  of  the 
work  produced  here  under  Government  auspices.  One 
of  the  most  interesting  institutions  in  Sarajevo  is  the 
Government  art  workshop  and  school,  where  sixty 
persons  are  employed,  all  Mohammedans,  some  in 
giving  or  receiving  lessons  in  metal-work,  and  others  in 
executing  highly  finished  designs  in  silver,  copper,  brass, 
wood,  and  other  materials.  With  characteristic  regard 
for  the  religious  feelings  of  the  pupils,  a  room  has  been 
specially  fitted  up  as  a  mosque  for  the  use  of  these 
Mussulmans,  so  that  they  can  perform  their  devotions 
without  leaving  the  building.  A  similar  establishment  is 
the  Government  carpet  manufactory,  where  two  hundred 
girls  may  be  seen  at  work,  and  a  speciality  is  the  so- 
called  Bez-ivebcrci  for  the  production  of  the  veils  and 
dresses  of  the  Mohammedan  ladies — an  industry  in  which 
six  hundred  workwomen  are  engaged,  in  and  out  of  the 
building  and  its  Mostar  branch.  Ladies  assure  me  that 
this  Bosnian  work  is  of  beautiful  quality,  and  compares 
very  favourably  with  the  fabrics  of  Brusa  and  Constanti- 
nople, which  in  finish  are  very  inferior  to  it.  It  need  not 
be  pointed  out  that  the  amount  of  employment  thus 
afforded  to  the  natives  is  very  considerable,  for  these 
industries  either  did  not  exist  at  all  in  the  Turkish  days, 
or  were  conducted  on  the  most  humble  scale.  Moreover, 
the  Government  is  doing  everything  it  can  to  improve  the 
condition  of  agriculture  by  the  creation  of  model  farms 
and  similar  institutions  in  different  parts  of  the  country. 
I  went  over  the  agricultural  school  at  Ilidze,  where  nine- 
teen pupils  are  at  present  being  educated  in  farming  and 

lOI 


Travels   and   Politics 

the   three  R's,  and  whence,  when  their   course  is   com- 
pleted, they  go  forth  as  apostles  of  practical  husbandry  to 
their  own  homes.     It  struck  me  as  an  excellent  idea  that 
their  subsequent  careers  were  carefully  followed,  for  in 
too  many  educational  establishments  the  pupil  ceases  to 
be  of  interest  to  his  master  as  soon  as  he  has  left  school. 
Close  by  is  a  model  dairy,  with  sixty-six  cows  in  its  stalls, 
a  large  vegetable  garden,  and  at  some  distance,  near  the 
source    of   the     Bosna,    an    establishment    for   scientific 
pisciculture.     At  Prjedor,  near  the  Croatian  frontier,   is 
a  Government  poultry  farm.     There  are  also  model  farms 
at  Livno,  Gacko,  and  Modric,  and  at  the  last-named  place 
a  certain  number  of  village  schoolmasters  have  every  year 
a  six  weeks'  course  of  practical  agriculture.     The  course 
comprises  almost  every  branch  of  husbandry,  and  as  soon 
as  sufficient  schoolmasters  have  obtained  this  instruction 
they  will  impart  it  to  the  pupils  in  the  two  upper  classes 
of   the  village  schools.     A   Government  station,  for  the 
improvement  of  viticulture,  exists  near  Mostar,  and  has 
done  much  to  improve  the  wine  industry  of  the  Herce- 
govma.     But  the  Hercegovina  possesses  another  natural 
product  which   has    been    greatly  developed  under  the 
new  ir<^iine.     I  allude  to  its  excellent  tobacco,  the  finest 
of   which  comes    from  Trebinje.     I  inspected  the  chief 
Government  tobacco  manufactory  at  Sarajevo — there  are 
others  at  Mostar,  Banjaluka  and  Travnik — and  observed 
all  the  processes  through  which  all  the  tobacco  passes. 
This  one  manufactory  emplovs  three  hundred  girls — all 
Christians — and  one  hundred  and  fifty  men — all  Mussul- 
mans, because  the  latter  are  more  accustomed  to  this. kind 
of  labour  than  the  Christian  males,  while  no  Mussulman 
woman    would   do    such   work.     Here   one  sees  all  the 
twelve  qualities  of  the  native  tobacco  from  the  best  Herce- 
govinian  down  to  the  worst  Bosnian — for  Bosnia  is  not  so 
favourable  to  the  growth  of  tobacco  as  the  Hercegovina, 

I02 


in   the  Near   East 

and  the  plant  is  indeed  cultivated  at  three  places  only 
in  Bosnia  proper — at  Banjaluka,  Foca,  and  Srebrenica. 
The  output  at  the  Sarajevo  factory  is  70  centners  a  day, 
and  in  addition  to  the  large  quantity  of  tobacco  con- 
sumed in  the  country,  there  is  now  a  considerable  export 
to  Laibach  and  Fiume  for  the  respective  halves  of  the 
Dual  Monarchy.  The  paper — and  most  of  the  cigarettes 
have  paper  mouthpieces — is  also  made  in  the  country  at 
the  paper-mill  at  Zenica.  Efforts  have  also  been  made 
to  improve  the  breed  of  horses  and  sheep  in  the  country, 
and  there  is  a  stud  farm  just  outside  the  capital.  During 
the  period  of  the  Occupation,  up  to  the  last  census,  the 
Bosnian  sheep  had  increased  by  2,390,732,  the  goats  by 
924,926,  the  cattle  by  655,264,  the  pigs  by  430,354,  and 
the  horses  by  78,458.  These  figures  are,  in  a  country 
like  Bosnia,  a  very  good  index  of  the  national  prosperity. 
At  the  exhibition  at  Vienna  this  year  special  commen- 
dation was  bestowed  upon  the  animals  which  were 
exhibited  in  the  Bosnian  section.  It  is  not  the  fault  of 
the  authorities  if  the  natives  do  not  improve  their 
primitive  style  of  cultivation  ;  but  in  this  respect,  as  in 
everything  else,  the  Bosniak  is  intensely  conservative,  and 
even  on  the  edge  of  the  model  farms  yon  will  find 
peasants  whose  agricultural  implements  and  methods 
have  changed  little  from  those  described  by  Virgil. 

The  land  question  was  indeed  a  difficulty  scarcely 
less  serious  than  the  animosities  of  rival  creeds,  when 
the  Austrians  arrived  in  the  country.  Long  before  that 
time  it  had  been  a  burning  problem  in  Bosnia.  It  was 
the  real  cause  of  the  insurrection  of  1875,  and  had  at 
repeated  intervals  before  that  date  produced  troubles  and 
disorders  among  the  people,  which  had  spread  over  the 
border  and  caused  constant  friction  between  the  Austrians 
and  the  Turks.  On  several  occasions  the  former  had  to 
take  upon  themselves  the  duty  of  chastising  the  Sultan's 

103 


Travels  and   Politics 

unruly  vassals,  and  at  last  matters  came  to  such  a  pitch 
that  the  Austrian  Government,  in  the  interests  of  its  own 
subjects,  urged  upon  the  Turkish  authorities  the  necessity 
of  land  reform.  In  consequence  of  these  remonstrances 
the  Turkish  law  of  Sefer  14,  1276  (September  12,  1859), 
was  introduced,  but  like  many  other  Turkish  arrange- 
ments, this  law  was  admirable  in  theory  but  a  dead  letter 
in  practice.  Upon  their  arrival  in  the  country,  however, 
the  Austrians  made  it  a  living  reality  and  it  still  remains  in 
force,  having  proved  itself,  after  twenty  years'  experience, 
to  be,  in  the  phrase  of  a  very  competent  authority,  "  a 
golden  law  for  the  peasant."  The  system,  w'hich  re- 
sembles the  Metayer  principle  of  Southern  Europe,  is  as 
follows  :  The  landlord,  or  aga,  and  the  cultivator,  or  kiuet, 
share  between  them  the  produce  of  the  soil,  in  a  propor- 
tion fixed  by  the  custom  of  the  district.  The  kiiiet  has 
first  to  pay  a  tithe  in  cash  to  the  Government,  and  one- 
third,  one-fourth,  or  one-fifth,  as  the  custom  may  be,  in 
kind  to  the  aga  ;  but  on  his  cattle  he  pays  nothing  to 
the  aga,  and  in  Bosnia,  as  we  have  seen,  cattle  form  a 
very  important  item  of  the  national  income.  The  aga,  on 
the  other  hand,  is  bound  to  provide  and  keep  in  repair 
the  kiiief's  farm  buildings.  If  the  former  wishes  to  sell, 
the  latter  enjoys  the  right  of  pre-emption,  and  the 
Laiidesbaiik,  founded  some  three  years  ago  with  a  capital 
of  10,000,000  gulden  advances  money  at  6^  per  cent,  to 
those  who  desire  to  exercise  this  right  but  have  not  the 
requisite  amount  of  spare  cash  for  the  purpose.  The  last 
census  proved  that  a  considerable  number  of  cultivators 
had  become  possessors  of  their  own  holdings,  and  that 
the  agricultural  population  consisted  in  about  equal 
proportions  of  kiiiefs  and  peasant-proprietors.  But  the 
peasant-proprietor  is  not  always  better  off  in  the  long  run 
than  the  unenfranchised  knief,  for  the  latter  cannot  be 
evicted  unless  he  either  fails  to  pay  the  share  due  to  his 

104 


in   the   Near   East 

aga  or  leaves  his  land  uncultivated  ;  the  peasant-pro- 
prietor, on  the  other  hand,  may  lose  the  roof  over  his  head 
as  the  result  of  a  bad  harvest.  Suitable  as  this  system  is 
to  the  peculiar  circumstances  of  Bosnia,  it  has  not  wholly 
satisfied  either  party  ;  indeed,  if  it  had,  that  would  be  a 
proof  that  it  had  favoured  the  one  at  the  expense  of  the 
other.  The  occupied  territory,  it  must  be  remembered, 
is  largely  agricultural,  and  the  Bosnian  and  Hercegovinian 
peasants  have  an  earth-hunger  not  less  intense  than  that 
of  the  Irish  farmer.  The  Austrians  were  accordingly 
besieged  on  their  arrival  by  cries  from  the  Christians, 
that  the  Mussulmans  had  "robbed  them  of  their  lands," 
and  by  demands  for  a  general  division  of  the  soil  among 
the  poor.  The  outcry  sounded  plausible  enough  at  first, 
but  diligent  investigations  proved  to  the  officials  that  this 
"  robbery,"  if  it  had  ever  been  perpetrated  at  all,  dated 
from  the  early  days  of  the  Turkish  rule,  and  was  therefore 
centuries  old.  The  Austrian  authorities  therefore  resolved 
to  make  the  best  they  could  of  the  existing  law  without 
risking  one  of  those  agrarian  revolutions  which  redress 
an  old  wrong  by  committing  a  new  one.  The  position 
of  the  peasant  is  now  a  certain  and  assured  one,  while  in 
the  Turkish  times  he  was  practically  the  slave  of  his 
landlord,  and,  worst  of  all,  the  exactions  of  the  tax-farmers 
were  such  that  he  seldom  kept  for  himself  more  than 
a  third  of  his  crop.  It  was  this  last  iniquity  which 
occasioned  the  outbreak  at  Nevesinje  in  1875,  which  was 
primarily  directed,  not  against  the  Sultan  but  against  the 
local  authorities  and  against  the  Mussulman  landowners. 
The  aga,  on  the  other  hand,  now  complains  that  the 
cultivator  can  no  longer  be  treated  like  an  inferior  being. 
But  both  sides  have  gained  confidence  in  the  impartiality 
of  the  Government  which  allows  assessors  chosen  from 
the  various  religious  persuasions  to  assist  the  judges  with 
their  local  experience  in  the  settlement  of  their  agrarian 

105 


Travels  and   Politics 

disputes.  Under  the  Turkish  rule  the  huet  was  always 
at  a  practical  disadvantage,  in  spite  of  the  theoretical 
equality  of  all  Ottoman  subjects  before  the  law,  so 
ostentatiously  proclaimed  by  Abdul  INIedjid  in  the  famous 
Hatti-cherif  oi  Gul-khane.  No  Christians  were  employed 
in  the  administration  ;  the  police  purchased  their  places, 
and  reimbursed  themselves  by  extorting  money  from 
those  whom  they  were  intended  to  defend  ;  and,  in  the 
words  of  the  British  Consul  of  that  day,  "  all  provincial 
authorities,  with  rare  exceptions,"  acted,  "according  to 
the  inspirations  of  their  own  personal  interest."  It  would 
have  been  impossible  to  introduce  the  jury  system  into 
the  occupied  territory,  because  no  Mussulman  jury 
would  sentence  a  Mussulman,  and  no  Christian  jury  a 
Christian.  So  in  criminal  cases  the  Austrians  have  pre- 
ferred a  system  of  assessors  chosen  from  among  the 
people,  known  as  the  ScJioffeusysteiii.  But  in  civil  matters, 
which  are  naturally  more  difficult,  assessors  are  only 
employed  in  the  least  important  cases.  In  some  matters 
Bosnia  is  even  ahead  of  the  Monarchy,  for  the  practice 
of  oral  instead  of  written  proceedings  existed  here  before 
it  was  adopted  in  Austria.  When  a  bad  season  occurs,  as 
was  the  case  last  year,  there  is  a  Cassa  for  making  advances 
to  the  peasants.  The  Government  buys  corn  for  them 
and  lets  them  have  seed,  not,  however,  as  a  free  gift, 
according  to  the  reckless  Turkish  method,  but  as  a  loan, 
so  as  not  to  pauperise  them.  F^or  the  Bosniak,  owing 
to  his  long  subjection  to  the  Turks,  lacks  that  moral 
strength  and  feeling  which  characterises  those  Balkan 
races  which  have  never  bowed  beneath  the  Ottoman 
voke.  Owing  to  the  subdivision  of  land  under  the 
Turkish  law,  which  distributes  the  testator's  real  property  in 
equal  shares  among  all  his  children,  sons  and  daughters 
alike,  the  agas  have  frequently  had  hard  work  to  make 
both  ends  meet,  and  they  also  can  get  assistance  from  the 

1 06 


in  the  Near  East 

Laiidcshank.  One  great  advantage  of  the  Bosnian  land 
tenure  is  that  it  prevents  foreign  speculators  from  buying 
up  the  land,  and  keeps  it  in  the  hands  of  the  natives. 
Another  advantage  is,  that  all  three  parties  concerned — 
the  Government,  the  aga,  and  the  kuiet — share  profits  and 
losses  among  them,  according  to  the  yield  of  the  year. 
Possiblv  as  time  goes  on  and  the  peasants  become  better 
educated,  the  old  Turkish  law  may  be  altered  ;  but  that 
will  not  be  just  yet.  However,  the  Bosnian  knict  is 
better  off  than  the  Dalmatian  or  Sicilian  peasant,  and  a 
"  European,"  resident  in  the  country  for  many  years,  has 
praised  "the  admirable  sense  of  humanity  and  justice 
exercised  by  those  who  are  at  this  moment  the  highest  in 
authority."  In  the  north  of  Bosnia  there  are  some  large 
Mussulman  landowners,  or  hcgs,  and  the  prizes  which 
these  sporting  landlords  give  every  year  for  the  races 
at  Prjedor,  to  encourage  the  breed  of  horses,  are  only 
second  in  importance  to  those  awarded  annually  at  the 
race-meeting  at  Ilidze. 

The  Austrians  have  had  to  create  practically  everything 
in  the  occupied  territory,  for  what  Crete,  Albania,  and 
Macedonia  are  to-day  that  was  Bosnia  in  1878  ;  and 
nothing  was  more  urgently  needed  than  some  decent 
means  of  communication.  In  no  respect  has  the  decline 
of  Turkish  administration  been  more  marked  than  in 
its  incapacity  to  make  and  keep  up  roads.  The  great 
Turkish  Sultans  of  the  past  were,  like  the  Romans, 
celebrated  as  road-makers,  and  in  the  Roman  times  three 
great  thoroughfares  connected  Bosnia  and  the  Herce- 
govina  with  the  Adriatic.  But,  as  everywhere  in  Turkey, 
the  roads  were  allowed  to  fall  into  ruin,  and  if  an 
energetic  monarcli  or  minister  sent  a  sum  of  money  to  a 
provincial  governor  for  road-making,  it  invariably  stuck 
in  the  governor's  pockets.  Thus  in  1878  there  was  an 
almost     impenetrable    barrier     between     this    romantic 

107 


Travels  and   Politics 

country  and  the  civilisation  of  the  West.  Miss  Irby/ 
who  has  given  so  many  years  of  her  Hfe  to  educa- 
tional work  among  the  Southern  Slavs,  tells  how, 
when  she  visited  Bosnia  shortly  before  the  Occupa- 
tion, the  only  means  of  reaching  Sarajevo  from  the 
frontier  at  Brod  was  the  post-cart  of  the  Austrian 
Consulate  which  passed  once  a  week  each  way  and 
took  two  days  and  a  night  or  more  on  the  journey. 
As  the  vehicle  had  no  springs  and  the  road  was  truly 
Turkish,  resembling  nothing  so  much  as  the  bed  of 
a  river,  the  delights  of  the  journey  may  be  imagined. 
The  father  of  a  friend  of  mine  was  in  charge  of  the  first 
waggon  that  went  from  Metkovic  to  Mostar.  The  sole 
piece  of  railway  in  the  country  was  the  fragment  of 
Turkish  line  from  Dobrlin  on  the  Croatian  border  to 
Banjaluka,  which  was  intended  to  be  the  first  instalment 
of  a  great  highwa}^  to  Salonica,  but  which,  like  so  many 
Turkish  undertakings,  remained  a  magnificent  torso  ! 
At  the  time  of  the  Occupation  grass  had  grown  on  the 
track,  and  Bosnia  was  still  without  a  single  train.  The 
Turks  had  ordered  iron  in  London  for  bridges  over 
the  Narenta,  but  this,  too,  the  Austrians  found  strewn 
about  the  country  on  their  arrival.  At  the  present 
moment  the  Bosnian  and  Hercegovinian  State  Rail- 
ways, including  the  Imperial  and  Royal  Military  line 
from  Banjaluka  to  Dobrlin,  consist  of  exactly  five 
hundred  English  miles  of  line,  the  fares  are  low, 
and  a  4th  class  has  been  provided  for  the  use  of 
the  peasants.  One  of  the  most  interesting  features 
of  Bosnian  travel  is  to  see  the  doors  of  the  4th  class 
opened  at  the  stations,  and  the  natives  (die  Eiiiliciiiii- 
scJicii,  as  the  Austrians  call  them)  descending  and  ascend- 
ing in  the  most  picturesque  of  costumes.  Two  things 
are  now  wanted  in  connection  with  the  railway  system. 

'  '■  Travels  in  the  Slavonic  Provinces  of  Turkej'-in-Europe,''  i.  2 
108 


in   the   Near   East 

When  the  Bosnian  line  was  built,  it  was  intended  for 
military  purposes,  and  was  required  to  be  quickly  and 
cheaply  constructed.  It  was  therefore  made  on  a  very 
small  gauge,  so  that  passengers  and  goods  have  to  be 
transhipped  at  the  frontier  at  Brod,  the  one  normal  gauge 
line  being  that  from  Banjaluka  to  Dobrlin.  A  new 
station  has  lately  been  opened  at  Brod,  but  even  that 
does  not  obviate  the  disadvantages  of  the  nocturnal 
change  of  carriages  at  that  place,  while  goods  suffer 
considerably  from  transhipment.  The  second  want  in 
the  country  is  a  direct  railway  communication  with 
Dalmatia,  the  natural  coast-line  of  the  occupied  territory. 
The  Hercegovina,  it  is  true,  touches  the  sea  at  two  points, 
on  the  Bocche  di  Cattaro,  near  Castelnuovo,  and  on  an 
arm  of  the  Adriatic  near  KIek,  but  the  harbour  of  Neum 
is  of  no  use,  and  at  present  the  only  direct  route  by  rail 
to  Dalmatia  is  the  line  to  Metkovic  on  the  Narenta, 
whence  steamers  ply  to  the  Dalmatian  coast,  down  the 
Narenta  Canal,  constructed  by  the  Austrians,  as  the  stone 
monument  at  Fort  Opus  relates,  "  between  the  years  1881 
and  1889."  It  is  now  proposed  to  connect  the  Herce- 
govina by  rail  from  Gabela,  the  next  station  to  Metkovic, 
with  Ragusa,  Gravosa,  and  Castelnuovo.  This  line,  which 
will  be  a  small  gauge  and  is  primarily  intended  for  mili- 
tary purposes,  is  to  be  completed  in  three  years,  and 
another  military  railway  is  contemplated  from  Gravosa  to 
Trebinje,  a  most  important  strategic  point.  The  former 
plan  of  continuing  the  Bosnian  line  from  Bugojno  to 
Spalato  has  been  temporarily  shelved,  owing  to  the  natural 
difficulties  of  the  mountain  route,  and  still  more  perhaps 
to  the  opposition  of  Hungary,  who  does  not  wish  to  see 
her  port  of  Fiume  injured  by  the  competition  of  Spalato. 
Another  suggestion  is  to  extend  the  existing  Dalmatian 
railway  from  its  present  terminus  at  Knin  to  a  junction 
with  the  Banjaluka-Dobrlin  line  at  Novi,     At  any  rate  it 

109 


Travels  and   Politics 

is  imperative,  in  the  interests  alike  of  Dalmatia  and 
Bosnia,  that  some  direct  railway  communication  should 
be  made  between  the  coast  and  its  natural  Hiittoiaiid.  It 
should  be  added  that  the  portion  of  the  main  line  from 
Zenica  to  Sarajevo  has  been  so  laid  that  it  could  easily  be 
adapted  to  the  ordinary  European  gauge,and  there  is  a  plan 
of  making  a  new  broad-gauge  line  next  spring,  direct  from 
Buda-Pesth  by  way  of  Samac  to  Sarajevo.  In  almost 
every  part  of  the  country  where  there  is  no  railway  the 
Government  has  a  post  or  diligence  service,  so  that  Bosnia 
and  the  Hercegovina  are  now  the  easiest  of  all  the  Balkan 
lands  in  which  to  travel.  Here  the  wretched  liaii,  which 
is  all  the  accommodation  that  can  be  found  in  the  country 
districts  of  Greece  or  Bulgaria,  is  replaced  in  the  prin- 
cipal places  by  Government  hotels,  commodiously  built 
and  let  to  some  landlord,  often  an  old  soldier  who  took 
part  in  the  campaign  of  1878.  This  interesting  and  novel 
experiment  in  State  Socialism  was  necessary,  owing  to  the 
uncertainty  of  the  Austro-Hungarian  occupation  at  the 
outset.  It  was  naturally  improbable  in  the  early  days 
that  capital  would  be  invested  in  a  country  which  might 
revert  to  the  Turk.  On  the  other  hand,  it  was  imperative 
to  provide  accommodation  for  offtcials  and  men  of 
business,  so  the  Government  took  the  matter  up  and  built 
hotels  of  its  own.  In  Sarajevo,  however,  private  enterprise 
has  enabled  the  authorities  to  dispense  with  this  arrange- 
ment, and  at  Brcka  on  the  Save,  the  headquarters  of  the 
Bosnian  plum  trade,  which  is  one  of  the  specialities  of  the 
province,  a  private  individual  has,  at  the  suggestion  of 
Baron  von  Kallay,  erected  a  large  hotel.  At  all  the 
Government  hotels  there  is  a  fixed  tariff  for  everything, 
and  the  traveller  is  thus  spared  the  constant  higgling, 
which  is  usual  in  the  East.  Elaborate  rules  are  drawn  up 
for  the  guidance  of  the  landlord  by  the  Bczirksvorsteher,  or 
head  of  the  district.     It  may  be  of  interest  to  give  some 

110 


in   the   Near   East 

specimens  of  these  rules,  which  I  copied  down  in  the 
Government  hotel  at  Alostar,  and  of  which  the  following 
is  a  translation  : — ■ 

"  GOVERXMEXT    HOTEL   IX    MOSTAR. 
Regulations. 

1.  The  management  of  the  Government  hotel,  including 
the  restaurant,  is  conducted  exclusively  by  the  landlord 
for  the  time  being,  and  the  whole  establishment  is  at  his 
orders. 

2.  Any  complaints  on  the  part  of  the  guests  in  respect 
of  insufficient  cleaning  of  the  private  and  public  rooms  of 
the  hotel,  or  impoliteness  of  the  attendants,  are  to  be 
brought  before  the  landlord  for  immediate  consideration. 

3.  Stairs  and  passages  must  be  cleaned  at  7  a.m  and 
3  p.m.  in  the  summer  months,  and  at  8  a.m.  and  2  p.m. 
during  the  rest  of  the  year.  After  these  hours  there  must 
be  no  knocking  nor  dusting  on  the  stairs  or  passages. 
Each  visitor's  room  is  to  be  properly  cleaned  within  2^ 
hours,  at  the  most,  after  it  has  been  vacated  by  the 
visitor. 

4.  In  order  to  avoid  any  danger  of  fire,  all  the  doors 
leading  to  the  roof  are  to  be  closed  and  their  keys  entrusted 
to  the  porter.  Under  no  circumstances,  except  the  utmost 
necessity,  are  lights  to  be  taken  into  the  attics. 

5.  At  II  p.m.  the  principal  entrance  of  the  hotel  is  to  be 
closed,  and  persons  can  only  enter  it  after  that  hour 
through  the  cafe  on  the  garden  side. 

6.  The  staircases  of  the  hotel  must  be  kept  lighted  all 
night. 

7.  It  is  forbidden  to  take  dogs  into  the  private  rooms, 
and  the  fabric  and  furniture  are  recommended  to  the  care 
of  the  travellers,  who  are  liable  to  make  good  any  damage 
done. 

Ill 


Travels   and   Politics 

8.  Excessive  noise,  by  which  the  night's  repose  is  dis- 
turbed, is  prohibited,  and  it  is  the  duty  of  the  servants  to 
speak  in  a  low  voice  in  the  corridor,  and  to  shut  the  doors 
slowly  and  cautiously. 

9.  In  order  to  show  proper  consideration  for  the  night's 
rest  of  the  visitors,  it  is  requested  that,  except  in  cases  of 
emergencv,  no  use  shall  be  made  of  the  electric  bell  for 
the  purpose  of  summoning  the  chambermaid  or  the 
boots. 

10.  Under  no  circumstances  can  the  landlord  be  com- 
pelled to  tolerate  in  the  hotel,  or  offer  accommodation  to, 
persons  suffering  from  an  infectious  complaint,  or  desirous 
of  using  the  hotel  for  immoral  purposes,  or  else  causing 
general  annoyance  by  their  unwarranted  demands. 

11.  Every  visitor  is  bound  at  once  to  till  in  legibly  the 
notice  of  his  arrival,  required  by  the  police." 

Where  no  hotel  exists,  rooms  can  generally  be  found 
at  the  Gcndarnicrie-posteii,  where  strangers,  officers  and 
officials  on  service  pay  60  kreuzer,  or  15.,  officers  of  the 
lower  rank  only  half  that  sum. 

The  increased  means  of  communication  and  the  estab- 
lishment of  hotels  have  had  the  natural  effect  of  intro- 
ducing the  commercial  traveller  to  the  country  in  large 
numbers.  Baron  von  Kallay  pointed  out  in  his  account 
of  the  occupied  territory  two  years  ago,  that  "  with  few 
and  unimportant  exceptions,  all  articles  imported  came 
from  Austria-Hungary,"  A  study  of  our  Consul-General's 
annual  reports  proves  the  truth  of  this  statement,  though 
in  some  respects,  such  as  the  trade  in  salt  and  the  manu- 
facture of  sugar,  Bosnia  is  practically  self-supporting. 
The  country  has,  from  time  immemorial,  been  celebrated 
for  its  salt,  and  one  of  the  earliest  events  in  its  history  was 
the  quarrel  betw^een  the  old  lllyrian  inhabitants  over  the 
salt  springs,  from  which  later  on  the  Romans  derived  con- 

112 


in   the   Near   East 

siderable  protit.'  Under  the  Turkish  rule  this,  like  most 
other  natural  resourees  of  Bosnia,  was  never  properly 
developed,  for  the  ot^cials  placed  in  charge  of  the  salt 
works  of  Siniinhan,  near  Dolnja  Tuzla,  found  it  more 
profitable  to  themselves  to  keep  the  output  low  and  eke 
out  their  salaries  at  the  expense  of  the  Government. 
With  Austrian  administration  all  that  has  been  changed, 
and  Bosnia  no  longer  needs  to  import  sea-salt  from  the 
Dalmatian  coast.  Similarly,  the  Government  sugar  factory 
at  Usora  now  almost  meets  the  demands  of  the  inhabi- 
tants, while  petroleum  also  is  produced  in  sufficient 
quantity  at  Brod.  British  imports  are  comparatively  few, 
and  so  long  as  British  merchants  continue  to  send  out 
their  circulars  in  their  own  language  and  to  express  their 
prices  in  their  own  currency  they  will  have  no  chance  of 
success.  As  a  partial  result  of  the  competition  caused  by 
the  visits  of  commercial  travellers  from  the  Monarchy,  the 
normal  rate  of  interest,  which  used  to  be  12,  15,  or 
even  20  per  cent,  in  the  Turkish  days,  has  now  sunk 
to  8  or  10  per  cent.  Some  of  the  native  shopkeepers, 
who  previously  had  a  monopoly,  make  a  grievance  of  this, 
forgetting  that  this  considerable  fall  in  prices  is  also 
partly  due  to  the  far  greater  security  of  life  and  property 
under  the  new  order  of  things.  Even  during  the  last 
two  years  I  noticed  an  improvement  in  the  shops  at 
Sarajevo,  which  is  now  very  well  supplied  with  the 
necessaries  and  many  of  the  luxuries  of  "  European " 
capitals,  while  it  is  far  ahead  of  Belgrade  and  Sofia  in 
this  respect,  as  well  as  in  its  picturesque  situation  and 
still-surviving  Oriental  character.     Mostar  and  Banjaluka 

■  It  has  even  been  proposed  to  derive  "Bosnia"  from  tiie  Albanian  words 
meaning  "land  of  salt,"  and  "  Hercegovina"  from  the  Turkish  phrase  for  a 
"  land  of  stones."  The  usual  derivations  of  the  two  names  are  from  the  river 
Bosna,  in  Latin  Basanic,  and  from  the  German  Herzog,  because,  in  1448,  that 
title  was  conferred  upon  Stephen  Vukiiic  by  the  Emperor.  Prior  to  that  the 
Hercegovina  had  been  known  as  the  "  land  of  Hum,"  or  Zahumlje,  from  the 
mountain  of  that  name. 

113  I 


Travels  and   Politics 

are  also  well  provided  alike  with  Western  and  Eastern 
wares.  There  seems  to  be  a  fair  sale  of  books,  in  both 
German  and  the  vernacular,  at  all  these  three  places,  and 
the  occupied  territory  has  now  a  considerable  number  of 
newspapers  in  various  languages.  There  is  in  German 
the  semi-official  Bosiiischc  Post,  which  two  years  ago 
blossomed  out  into  a  daily  paper,  and  is  now  also  pub- 
lished thrice  a  week  in  the  vernacular  under  the  title 
of  J^osanskd  Posfu.  It  contains  the  latest  telegrams,  a 
feuilleton  and  several  articles  on  political  or  economic 
subjects,  and  used  formerly  to  be  edited  by  a  talented 
lady,  Frl.  Milena  Mrazovic,  who  has  published  a  very 
readable  volume  of  Bosnian  tales,  illustrative  of  the  native 
customs,  under  the  title  of  Sclniii.  Since  her  marriage 
she  has  retired  from  journalism,  and  her  place  is  now 
filled  by  Herr  Oscar  Hirth.  Another  official  organ  is  the 
Sarajc7'ski  List,  printed  in  the  vernacular.  The  Bosnian 
Mussulmans  have  two  organs,  the  Bosnjak,  published  in 
Croatian  characters,  and  the  Rclibcr,  w^hich  appears  in 
Turkish.  The  museum  at  Sarajevo  publishes  an  illus- 
trated magazine  in  the  vernacular,  the  principal  articles  of 
which  are  translated  into  German  and  issued  annually 
in  a  valuable  scientific  work,  entitled,  Wissenschaftliche 
Mittheilitiigen  aiis  Bosiiien  mid  der  Hercegovina,  of 
which,  up  to  the  present,  five  volumes  have  appeared. 
It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  this  work  has  supplied 
students  of  history,  folk-lore,  and  kindred  sciences  with  a 
vast  number  of  new  facts,  for  under  the  Turks  antiquaries 
were  looked  on  as  either  criminals,  condemned  for  a  cer- 
tain time  to  walk  among  the  tombs,  or  madmen,  and  the 
antiquities  of  Bosnia  and  the  Hercegovina  were  neglected. 
An  Austrian  official,  who  has  spent  many  years  in  the 
country,  tells  me  that  in  the  early  days  after  the  Occupa- 
tion the  natives  regarded  men  of  science  as  lunatics,  and, 
on  one  occasion,  when  he  sent  a  Bosniak  as  guide  with 

114 


in   the   Near   East 

an  enthusiastic  collector  of  beetles  and  butterflies,  the 
man  returned  in  alarm  for  the  sanity  of  his  charge.  The 
Nada  and  the  Bosaiiska  Vila  are  journals  devoted  to  light 
literature,  and  the  Orthodox  Church,  the  Franciscans, 
and  the  Archbishopric  of  Sarajevo  all  have  their  organs 
in  the  vernacular.  A  new  quarterly  represents  educa- 
tional interests.  Mostar  has  one  weekly  paper,  and 
another  is  shortly  to  be  issued  there.  Thus  it  will  be 
seen  that  the  Bosniaks  fully  share  the  South  Slavonic 
craving  for  news  of  all  kinds.  During  the  Greco-Turkish 
war  of  last  year  the  Bosnian  Mussulmans  took  the  deepest 
interest  in  the  success  of  the  Turkish  arms,  several  of 
them  volunteered  for  service,  and  I  have  seen  in  Moslem 
houses  in  the  country  pictures  of  the  battles  and  portraits 
of  the  Turkish  commanders.  To  this  section  of  the 
community  the  Turkish  labels  on  my  baggage  rendered 
me  an  object  of  interest  as  soon  as  1  arrived  on  the 
platform  at  Sarajevo. 

Although  Bosnia  and  the  Hercegovina,  which  were 
historically  separate,  with  occasional  intervals,  in  pre- 
Turkish  times,  are  still  geographically  and  ethnologically 
somewhat  distinct — for  the  Hercegovinian  character 
differs  in  several  important  respects  from  that  of  the 
Bosniaks,  just  as  that  of  the  Montenegrin  Serbs  differs 
from  that  of  the  Serbs  of  Servia — the  two  provinces  have 
been  amalgamated  together  for  administrative  purposes 
by  the  present  Government.  The  Austro-Hungarian 
system  divides  the  whole  country  into  six  Kreise,  or 
counties,  which  are  composed  of  fifty-two  Bezirke,  or 
districts.  The  Kreise  take  their  names  from  the  six  towns 
of  Sarajevo,  Mostar,  Banjaluka,  Travnik,  Dolnja  Tuzla, 
and  Bihac,  and  are  each  placed  under  an  official,  known 
as  a  Kreisvorsteliev,  while  the  districts  are  each  adminis- 
tered by  a  Bezirksvorsfeher,  or  in  small  places  by  a 
Leitcr  der  Bezirksexpositiir.      The   Bezirksvorstelier  is  the 

115 


Travels   and   Politics 

head  of  all  the  various  district  officials,  and  the  liciirks- 
niiit,  in  which  his  office  is  situated,  is  the  centre  of  local 
government.  It  will  thus  be  seen  that  the  machine  of 
local  administration  in  the  occupied  territory  is  a  very 
elaborate  one,  and  a  special  publication,  the  BosiiiscJier 
Bote,  is  large!}'  filled  with  the  names  of  the  officials.  The 
country  is  administered  with  the  utmost  thoroughness, 
which  forms  an  immense  contrast  after  the  slovenly 
government  of  the  Turks.  "  We  have  written  more  in 
twenty  years  than  the  Turks  in  four  hundred,"  said  a 
local  official  to  me,  as  he  described  how,  just  after  the 
Occupation,  at  Zepce,  he  had  found  that  an  old  bag  of 
scrappy  papers  represented  the  whole  of  the  Turkish 
archives.  Every  time  that  a  document  was  wanted  this 
bag  had  to  be  shaken  out  and  its  contents  emptied  on  to 
the  floor.  Now  all  papers  are  filed  and  docketed,  and 
"commissions"  are  issued  for  even  the  smallest  matters, 
such  as  the  death  of  a  horse.  I  have  heard  it  said  that 
Bosnia  is  over-administered,  and  have  met  people  who 
regretted  the  lax  Turkish  methods,  when  a  single  illiterate 
scribe  took  the  place  of  the  present  trim  and  highly 
educated  officials.  But  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  the 
country  could  have  been  systematically  developed  without 
the  collaboration  of  a  large  staff  of  trained  men.  More- 
over, it  is  much  cheaper  in  the  long  run  to  pay  officials 
good  salaries  and  thus  secure  honest  administration,  than 
to  follow  the  usual  Turkish  practice  of  giving  them  little 
or  nothing  and  leaving  them  to  support  themselves  by 
robbing  the  Government,  the  people,  or  both.  From  a 
considerable  experience  of  the  Austro-Hungarian  authori- 
ties, not  merely  in  the  chief  towns  and  on  the  beaten 
track,  but  up  country  and  off  the  ordinary  routes,  I  have 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  they  resemble  our  own  civil 
servants  in  their  integrity,  their  absolute  devotion  to  their 
duty,  and  their  unflagging  energy,  while,   I  think,  they 

ii6 


in   the   Near   East 

surpass  the  average  Anglo-Indian  official  in  their  keen 
interest  in  the  welfare  of  the  people  committed  to  their 
charge.  Every  official  whom  I  met,  from  whatever  part 
of  the  Monarchy  he  might  have  come,  spoke  the  language 
of  the  people — a  task  which  is,  of  course,  lighter  for  the 
Austrian  Slavs  than  for  the  Germans  and  the  Magyars. 
There  are  in  Bosnia  examples  of  Austrian  and  Hungarian 
Barons,  who  might  have  obtained  high  posts  in  the 
Monarchy,  but  who  have  voluntarily  sought  service  in 
this  new  and  interesting  country,  where  there  was  a  far 
greater  scope  for  their  constructive  faculties.  Right  up 
in  the  little  country  towns  you  will  find  gentlemen  of  the 
highest  culture  and  the  oldest  family,  who  ''scorn  delights 
and  live  laborious  days,"  simply  and  solely  for  the  sake 
of  their  work.  One  and  all,  these  officials  take  the 
utmost  pride,  as  they  have  every  reason  to  do,  in  the 
achievements  of  the  last  twenty  years,  and  nothing  gives 
them  greater  pleasure  than  to  show  off  the  country  to  the 
stranger.  One  Ki'cis7'oi'stelicr,  who  fought  in  the  campaign 
of  1878  and  has  since  spent  all  his  life  in  the  occupied 
territory,  told  me  that  he  would  rather  have  his  present 
work  than  any  other,  and  spoke  in  the  highest  terms  of 
the  native  intelligence  and  judgment  of  even  the  most 
illiterate  Bosniaks.  It  is  impossible  not  to  be  struck  by 
the  sympathetic  attitude  of  the  officials  towards  the 
people,  without  distinction  of  class  or  creed.  "  IlVr  inilsscn 
uiit  den  Eiiilieiiiiisclieii  liaruionircn,"  remarked  to  me  a  smart 
young  officer,  whose  superior  had  rebuked  him  for  excess 
of  zeal  in  putting  into  force  the  law  against  fishing  out  of 
season.  To  respect  the  prejudices  of  the  natives  is  the 
watchword  of  the  administration,  and  it  would  be  difficult 
to  find  a  more  remarkable  contrast  than  that  between 
the  Russian  methods  in  emancipated  Bulgaria  and  the 
Austrian  policy  in  occupied  Bosnia.  So  fast  has  been 
the  rate  of  progression  that  not  a  few  officials  complain 

117 


Travels   and   Politics 

of  "  nerves  "  as  the  result  of  overwork,  and  their  functions 
grow  every  year.  Many  of  the  district  officials  have  to 
cover  a  very  wide  area,  and  it  is  no  uncommon  thing  to 
find  them  working  early  and  late,  in  order  to  get  through 
their  business.  The  chiefs  of  the  various  departments 
have  a  happy  knack  of  inspiring  their  subordinates  with 
their  own  enthusiasm,  and  a  strong  conviction  of  Austria- 
Hungary's  mission,  as  the  apostle  of  culture  in  the 
Balkans,  animates  the  officials,  one  and  all.  Already, 
too,  the  minor  posts  are  beginning  to  be  filled  by  the 
rising  generation  of  Bosniaks,  which  has  grown  up  since 
the  Occupation.  But,  though  the  natives  of  Bosnia  and 
the  Hercegovina  are  better  than  most  Orientals,  it  is  said 
that  they  still  share  in  the  common  Oriental  defect,  a  lack 
of  public  spirit.  For  the  average  native  of  the  East  is 
perhaps  more  apt  than  the  "  European "  to  consider 
himself  and  his  family  first  and  the  community  a  long 
way  after  those  primary  interests.  Hence  the  Austrians 
regard  it  as  still  desirable  to  have  a  commissioner  at  the 
side  of  the  local  authorities,  whose  duty  it  is  to  see  that 
the  public  money  is  not  wasted.  In  time  the  natives 
may  attain  to  larger  powers  of  self-government ;  but  the 
example  of  Servia  is  not  encouraging,  and  at  any  rate  in 
Bosnia  that  time  has  not  yet  arrived.  For  my  part,  I  am 
convinced  that  the  only  form  of  government  suited  to 
an  Oriental  people,  lately  emancipated  from  centuries  of 
Turkish  misrule,  is  a  benevolent  autocracy.  Of  all  forms 
of  political  folly  the  worst  is  to  bestow  full  representative 
government  upon  an  Eastern  nation  before  it  has  had 
any  chance  of  obtaining  a  training  in  public  affairs. 
Disastrous  as  such  a  procedure  has  proved  in  Greece,  in 
Servia,  and  to  a  less  degree  in  hard-headed  Bulgaria,  it 
would  be  worse  in  Bosnia,  because  of  the  mixture  of 
creeds  in  the  latter  country.  It  is  the  impartial  rule  of 
Austria-Hungary,  which   keeps    the  various    confessions 

ii8 


in   the   Near   East 

of  the  country  at  peace,  while  the  Monarchy  possesses 
resources,  ahke  in  men  and  money,  which  no  indepen- 
dent Balkan  State,  no  fantastic  "  Servian  Empire  "  could 
produce.  Unity  has  never  been  a  feature  of  the  Southern 
Slavs,  except  at  rare  intervals,  under  the  sublime  influ- 
ence of  some  great  man,  whose  successors  were  unable 
to  hold  his  heritage  together.  Were  the  Austrians  to 
withdraw  from  Bosnia  the  various  creeds  would  be  at 
each  other's  throats,  and  the  last  state  of  the  country 
would  be  worse  than  the  first.  History  and  common 
sense  both  point  to  the  present  system  as  the  best  for 
the  peculiar  circumstances  of  this  land.  That  Prince 
Nicholas  of  Montenegro  should  covet  the  Hercegovina — 
the  land  whence  his  ancestors  came,  the  land  where 
many  of  his  subjects  died  sword  in  hand — is  not  un- 
natural. But  it  may  be  doubted  whether  the  Herce- 
govinians,  after  twenty  years'  experience  of  the  material 
blessings  of  Austro-Hungarian  rule,  would  care  to  become 
his  vassals.  Even  during  the  war  of  1876-7  there  was 
considerable  jealousy  between  the  leaders  of  the  Monte- 
negrin and  Hercegovinian  forces,  and  no  less  doughty  a 
warrior  than  the  old  brigand  chief,  Pero  Radovic,  whose 
image  now  adorns  cigarette  boxes,  was  on  the  point  of 
drawing  the  sword  against  the  men  of  Prince  Nicholas. 
Every  year  it  is  announced  that  on  St.  George's  Day 
(April  23rd)  the  Montenegrins  will  begin  their  crusade 
against  the  Austrians  ;  then  St.  Elias'  Day  (August  ist)  is 
chosen  for  the  invasion  ;  and,  finally,  November  9th,  is 
selected  for  the  attack.  These  frequent  cries  of  "Wolf  !" 
have  taught  the  Hercegovinians  to  disregard  these  notifi- 
cations, and  since  1882,  when  there  was  a  small  insurrec- 
tion in  the  occupied  territory,  chiefly  owing  to  the 
Mussulman  dislike  of  serving  with  the  Christians,  public 
security  has  been  undisturbed.  The  Austro-Hungarian 
forces,  which  this  year  were  estimated  at  18,881  non- 
119 


Travels  and   Politics 

commissioned  officers  and  men,  have  been  diminished 
without  the  sHghtest  risk,  and  the  country,  as  1  know 
from  my  personal  experience  in  journeying  to  and  fro 
across  it,  is  perfectly  safe.  Neither  here  nor  in  Monte- 
negro have  1  ever  carried  a  revolver,  and  in  neither  land 
have  I  ever  felt  the  want  of  one.  Financially,  Bosnia 
pays  its  way,  as  Baron  von  Kallay  explained  in  his  last 
budget  speech  ;  and  when  a  loan  was  brought  out  a 
couple  of  years  ago  for  public  works,  it  was  at  once 
covered.  The  budget  for  the  current  year  shows  a 
considerable  surplus,  which  will  probably  be  increased 
as  a  result  of  the  harvest.  It  is  a  great  financial  advan- 
tage to  the  coimtry,  that,  unlike  Cyprus,  it  has  no  tribute 
to  pay  to  Turkey. 

It  is  said  by  some  critics  that  the  natives  feel  the 
burden  of  taxation  much  more  than  in  Turkish  times. 
To  compare  the  two  administrations  in  this  respect  is 
difficult,  because  the  Turkish  Government  did  practically 
nothing  for  its  Bosnian  subjects,  and  what  it  did  was 
dear  at  any  price.  The  present  system  of  taxation 
consists,  first,  of  the  already  mentioned  tithe — in  cash — 
to  the  Government,  on  the  fruits  of  the  field,  but  this 
does  not  press  as  heavily  as  might  appear  upon  the 
cultivator  owing  to  the  fact  that  cattle  and  not  crops 
form  the  staple  industry  of  the  country.  There  is  a  tax 
of  10  kreuzers,  or  twopence  per  sheep,  the  first  ten  sheep 
being  allowed  free.  There  is  no  tax  on  cows,  but  the 
tax  on  goats  has  been  deliberately  raised,  not  for  purposes 
of  revenue  but  in  order  to  prevent  further  destruction  of 
the  woods  by  goats.  The  idea  of  the  Government  was  to 
make  it  prohibitive  by  taxation  to  keep  a  flock  of  goats 
more  than  iifty  in  number.  But  in  spite  of  the  graduated 
taxation  on  goats  the  peasants  still  keep  large  flocks  of 
them,  preferring  them  to  sheep  as  being  hardier  and 
requiring  less  attention.     The  figures  already  quoted  of 

120 


in   the   Near   East 

the  increased  numbers  of  these  destructive  animals  prove 
that  this  taxation  has  not  in  the  least  crippled  this  branch 
of  farming.  The  Government,  warned  by  the  awful 
example  of  the  bare  Dalmatian  mountains,  is  anxious  to 
preserve  the  fine  Bosnian  forests,  and  its  success  has 
been  proved  by  the  recent  request  of  the  Servian  authori- 
ties to  Baron  von  Kallay  to  send  them  an  ofticial  from 
the  Bosnian  Woods'  and  Forests'  Department  for  the 
benefit  of  their  own  country.  Nor  can  any  one  who 
crosses  the  Bosnian  frontier  into  the  Sandzak  of  Novi- 
Bazar  fail  at  once  to  mark  the  difference  between  the 
state  of  the  trees  on  the  Bosnian  side  and  the  charred 
trunks  or  blackened  stumps  to  which  Turkish  ignorance 
or  indolence  has  reduced  what  was  once  a  waving  forest. 
The  Government  also  derives  a  considerable  revenue 
from  the  salt  monopoly,  and  from  the  mines  which  are 
almost  exclusively  in  its  hands  or  in  those  of  companies 
in  which  it  is  interested.  The  mineral  wealth  of  Bosnia 
was  known  as  far  back  as  the  Roman  era.  Roman  authors 
extolled  the  Bosnian  gold,  of  which  as  much  as  50  lbs. 
were  obtained  in  a  single  day,  and  a  special  functionary 
presided  over  the  administration  of  the  Bosnian  gold- 
mines. As  Mussulmans  object  to  mining  and  the 
Orthodox  were  chiefly  employed  on  the  land,  the  iron 
ore  of  Bosnia  was  entirely  worked  by  the  Catholics 
before  the  Occupation.  The  latest  returns  show  a 
considerably  increased  output  of  most  of  the  Bosnian 
minerals.  In  Turkish  times,  of  course,  as  a  Bosnian 
peasant  told  me,  the  taxes  were  collected  onlv  once  in 
ten  years,  and  even  then  it  was  possible  to  escape  pay- 
ment by  means  of  those  arguments  against  which  the 
ill-paid  Turkish  official  is  seldom  i)roof.  But  it  must  be 
observed  that  whereas  now  the  peasant  has  discharged 
all  his  liabilities  to  the  Government  as  soon  as  he  has 
paid  his  tithe,  in  Turkish  times,  when  these  taxes  were 

121 


Travels  and   Politics 

farmed  out  the  exactions  of  the  tax-gatherer  were  such 
that  the  peasant  seldom  kept  for  himself  more  than  a 
third  of  his  crop.  Even  if  the  harvest  were  a  bad  one,  as 
was  the  case  in  1874,  the  tax-gatherer  did  not  on  that 
account  diminish  his  demands,  while  redress  was  prac- 
tically impossible.  Those  who  prefer  the  irregular  collec- 
tion of  taxes,  the  lack  of  law  and  order,  the  blood-feud, 
and  all  the  other  delights  of  the  Middle  Ages  have  but  to 
go  beyond  the  Austrian  military  posts  in  the  Sandzak  and 
they  will  find  what  they  seek. 

In  one  other  respect — the  health  of  the  people — the 
traveller  will  notice  a  marked  contrast.  Before  the  Occu- 
pation, small-pox,  that  scourge  of  the  Near  East,  com- 
mitted terrible  ravages  in  Bosnia,  as  it  still  does  in  Novi- 
Bazar  and  other  parts  of  Turkey,  and  the  number  of 
elderly  people  who  are  pitted  with  pock  marks  is  con- 
siderable. The  director  of  the  fine  new  hospital  at 
Sarajevo,  of  which  Professor  Virchow  has  spoken  so 
highly,  informed  me  that  in  his  experience  there  had 
been  no  case  of  small-pox  in  his  wards  and  practically 
none  since  the  population  was  vaccinated.  Vaccination 
is  not  compulsory,  but  it  is  very  popular  with  the  natives 
who  fully  comprehend  its  advantages — in  fact  the  hos- 
pital, which  receives  about  3,400  patients  a  year,  is  much 
appreciated  by  Bosniaks  of  all  creeds.  As  I  walked 
through  the  wards,  which  contain  three  hundred  beds,  I 
saw  Mussulmans  lying  comfortably  cheek  by  jowl  with 
Christians  ;  while  I  was  told  that  the  Mussulman  w^omen, 
who  can,  if  they  choose,  have  a  screen  to  keep  them  from 
the  gaze  of  their  Christian  sisters,  make  no  objection  to 
occupying  the  same  wards  with  the  females  of  other 
confessions.  This  is  another  hopeful  sign  for  the  future. 
Alcoholism,  unfortunately,  has  become  more  common 
than  it  was,  especially  among  the  Mussulmans ;  there 
were  two  fresh   cases  of  it   the  day  that    I    visited    the 

1 22 


ill   the   Near   East 

hospital,  and  it  is  curious  to  hear  that  nervous  com- 
plaints are  not  infrequent  among  this  primitive  people. 
The  drainage  works  at  Sarajevo,  which  are  now  being 
carried  out,  will  improve  the  health  of  that  town.  It 
should  be  added  that  in  all  the  eight  district  hospitals 
of  the  country  and  in  the  large  hospital  at  Sarajevo  the 
natives  are  treated  free  of  charge,  while  in  the  lattei 
institution  paying  patients  can  receive  superior  accommo- 
dation in  one  of  the  fourteen  separate  pavilions  which 
compose  the  building.  At  present  all  the  thirteen 
doctors  of  this  institution  come  from  the  Monarchy, 
but  native  doctors  will  soon  be  available.  As  in  the 
Turkish  times  there  was  only  a  small  hospital  in 
Sarajevo,  this  foundation  constitutes  a  great  improve- 
ment. 

The  progress  of  the  last  sixteen  years  has  been  largely 
due  to  the  energy  and  judgment  of  Baron  von  Kallay. 
Not  yet  sixty  years  of  age,  he  has  played  many  parts.  A 
Hungarian  by  birth,  he  early  devoted  himself  to  the 
study  of  Slav  languages,  and  during  his  eight  years' 
sojourn  at  Belgrade  as  Consul-General,  he  not  only 
collected  the  materials  for  an  excellent  history  of  the 
Serbs,  but  made  himself  acquainted  with  the  character 
of  the  Servian  people.  When,  in  1878,  the  Hungarians 
opposed  the  Occupation  of  Bosnia  and  the  Hercegovina, 
because  they  did  not  wish  to  increase  the  Slav  population 
of  the  Monarchy,  he  strongly  defended  the  new  policy 
which  he  had  already  foreshadowed  in  a  newspaper. 
Appointed  in  1882  Common  Minister  of  Finance  for  the 
two  halves  of  the  Monarchy  and  head  of  the  Bosnian 
Administration,  he  was  on  familiar  ground,  for  he  had 
already  visited  Bosnia  during  his  appointment  at 
Belgrade.  Assisted  by  a  "Common  Ministry  for  the 
affairs  of  Bosnia  and  the  Hercegovina "  which  has  its 
seat    at  Vienna,   and   of    which    Herr   von    Horovic   is 

123 


Travels  and  Politics  in  the  Near  East 

departmental  chief,  and  by  a  staff  of  officials  in  Bosnia 
itself,  Baron  von  Kallay  has  laboured  unceasingly  for  the 
civilisation  of  the  country.  He  possesses  an  intimate 
acquaintance  with  its  topography,  and  a  yoiuig  official 
told  me  that  when  Baron  von  Kallay  appointed  him  to 
an  out-of-the-way  post  he  gave  him  offhand  a  complete 
description  of  the  neighbourhood.  He  makes  periodical 
tours  of  inspection,  and  has  ridden  the  length  of  the 
mountainous  frontier  of  Montenegro  and  the  Hercego- 
vina.  Probably  no  other  statesman  of  the  Monarchy 
understands  the  peoples  of  the  Balkan  Peninsula  so  well, 
and  in  his  choice  of  officials  he  has  been  actuated  by 
the  desire  to  obtain  specialists  as  far  as  possible.  The 
military  head  of  the  Government,  Baron  Appel,  has  as 
his  Civil-adlatus  Baron  Kutschera,  who  came  to  Bosnia 
seven  years  ago,  in  consequence  of  his  large  previous 
acquaintance  with  Turkey.  Baron  von  Benko,  the 
Sectionschcf  7\.i  Sarajevo,  was  an  old  comrade  at  Shanghai 
of  Baron  von  Calice,  the  present  doxcn  of  the  diplomatic 
body  at  Constantinople,  and  has  had  eighteen  years' 
experience  in  Bosnia  and  the  Hercegovina,  where  he 
was  appointed  at  his  own  desire.  Another  interesting 
figure  of  the  official  world  is  Baron  von  Mollinary,  the 
Krcisvorsteher  of  Sarajevo,  who,  as  head  of  the  tourist 
club,  has  done  more  than  any  one  else  to  make  the 
beauties  of    Bosnia  known  to  strangers. 

Baron  von  Kallay's  work  has  been  greatly  aided  by  his 
wife,  who  is,  not  without  reason,  called  "  the  Queen  of 
Bosnia."  She  passes  a  considerable  part  of  each  year  in 
Bosnia,  and  her  receptions  at  Ilidze  form  the  centre  of 
society.  In  her  salon  representative  men  of  all  creeds 
meet,  and  officials  and  natives  assemble  together.  I  saw 
at  the  race-ball  which  she  gave  one  of  the  leading  Mussul- 
mans of  Sarajevo  dancing  the  Hungarian  Csdnlas  as  well 
as  the  national  Kolo,  while  the  Chief  Rabbi  of  the  Spanish 

I2q 


Travels  and  Politics 

Jews — for,  like  Salonica  and  Smyrna,  Sarajevo  has  a 
considerable  number  of  Jewish  inhabitants,  whose  fore- 
fathers emigrated  from  Spain  in  the  sixteenth  century — 
sipped  his  coffee  in  the  midst  of  Catholics,  Orthodox,  and 


MADAME   VOX    KALLAY. 


Mohammedans.  Baroness  von  Kallay  is  absolutely  de- 
voted to  her  husband's  work  in  Bosnia,  and  as  she 
speaks    the    vernacular,    as    well    as    Magyar,   German, 

126 


in   the   Near   East 

French,  and  English,  she  is  well  equipped  for  the  great 
social  position  which  she  tills  and  which  may  be  com- 
pared with  that  of  a  Viceroy's  wife  in  India.  She  is  an 
extremely  practical  lady,  takes  a  keen  interest  in  the 
hospital,  and  expressed  to  me  her  belief  in  the  mistake  of 
some  Balkan  peoples  in  sacrificing  their  material  pro- 
gress to  politics,  "  which  bring  nothing  into  the  kitchen." 
She  is  naturally  proud  of  the  success  achiev^ed  in  the 
occupied  territory,  and  told  me  how  gratified  she  had 
been  by  the  desire  which  the  King  of  Greece  had  once 
expressed  to  her  in  Vienna,  of  visiting  a  country  about 
which  he  had  heard  so  much.''  She  understands  better 
than  most  people  how  to  attract  the  Mussulman  women, 
who  come  readily  to  the  receptions,  which  she  organises 
for  them,  in  order  that  they  may  see  something  of 
"  European  "  ways.  Like  every  one  else  in  Bosnia,  she 
is  wrapped  up  in  the  country,  where  she  and  her 
daughters  pass  so  much  of  their  time.  No  function  is 
complete  without  her,  and  one  sees  fountains  dedicated 
to  her  and  springs  called  by  her  name  of  "  Vilma." 

Although  the  Emperor  takes  special  interest  in  the 
development  of  Bosnia  and  the  Hercegovina,  in  which 
he  sees  a  compensation  for  the  loss  of  Lombardy  and 
Venetia,  he  has,  for  diplomatic  reasons,  avoided  visiting 
the  occupied  territory,  except  on  the  occasion  when  he 
crossed  the  Save  at  Brod  in  1885  at  the  spot  where  his 
forces  had  entered  Bosnia  seven  years  earlier,  and  where, 
in  1697,  Prince  Eugen  of  Savoy  had  started  on  his  dash- 
ing march  to  Sarajevo.  But  the  late  Archduke  Rudolph, 
who  was  greatly  beloved  by  the  Southern  Slavs,  travelled 
in  Bosnia  and  the  Hercegovina,  and  other  members  of 
the   house   of    Hapsburg   have   also  been  there.     What 

'  The  King  of  Servia  a  couple  of  months  ago,  after  visiting  the  Bosnian  section 
of  the  Exhibition  at  Vienna,  paid  Baron  von  Kallay  a  warm  compliment  on  the 
progress  of  Bosnia. 

127 


Travels   and   Politics 

the  future  may  bring  fortli  it  is  hard  to  say.  But  to  me 
it  seems  at  once  unjust  and  unpractical  that  Austria- 
Hungary  should  not  be  allowed  one  day  to  reap  the 
reward  of  her  labours  in  the  occupied  territory.  She  has 
expended  large  sums  of  money  and  a  great  store  of 
energy  in  reclaiming  this  beautiful  land  from  barbarism. 
Africa,  according  to  the  old  saying,  began  at  the  Pyre- 
nees ;  Europe,  before  1878,  began  at  the  Save  and  the 
Una.  What  we  have  accomplished  in  Egvpt,  what  in 
less  measure  the  French  have  achieved  in  Tunis,  that  has 
Austria-Hungary  performed  in  these  wild  Turkish  pro- 
vinces. That  Bosnia  and  the  Hercegovina  should  now 
be  allowed  to  go  back  to  barbarism  is  an  absurdity  of 
which  even  the  "Concert  of  Europe"  would  not  be 
guilty.  Baron  von  Kallay  said  two  years  ago  that  "  if 
the  state  of  affairs  existing  prior  to  1878  were  to  be 
suddenly  restored  in  Bosnia  it  would  make  the  whole 
population  thoroughly  unhappy."  A  return  to  Ottoman 
rule  being  thus  out  of  the  question,  there  are  only  two 
alternatives,  to  the  Austro-Hungarian  rule.  One,  the 
erection  of  Bosnia  and  the  Hercegovina  into  an  inde- 
pendent Balkan  State  is  contrary  to  all  the  lessons  of 
their  past  history  and  would  lead  to  a  renewal  of  those 
religious  quarrels  between  the  various  sections  of  the 
population  which  stained  with  blood  the  turbulent 
annals  of  the  old  Bosnian  kingdom.  The  other,  the 
creation  of  a  great  Servian  Empire,  of  which  Bosnia  anc 
the  Hercegovina  w^ould  form  a  part,  or  parts,  is  one  r 
those  fantastic  day-dreams,  which  are  repugnant  alike 
the  teachings  of  Balkan  history  and  the  dictates  o. 
common  sense.  Under  no  other  Government,  which  is 
at  all  within  the  range  of  practical  politics,  would  Bosnia 
and  the  Hercegovina  be  so  well  off  materially  as  under 
that  of  Austria-Hungaiy,  and  the  question  now  remains, 
whether    the    Occupation    will    last    much    longer,    or 

128 


in   the   Near  East 

whether  annexation  will  shortly  be  proclaimed.     For  a 
time,    undoubtedly,    the    present    system    worked    better 
than    any   other    would    have    done.      If    it    somewhat 
checked  the  import  of  private  capital,  it  had  the  advan- 
tage   of   postponing   the  question,  to  which  half  of  the 
Monarchy  the  new  province  was  to  belong — to  Austria  or 
to   Hungary.     The    Hungarians    have    certain    historical 
claims  to  its  possession — and  history  counts  for  more  in 
the  Near  East  than  with  us — for  they  early  tried  to  obtain 
a  footing  in  the  country,  and  in  1135  we  find  one  of  their 
kings,  Bela  II.,  for  the  first  time  styling  himself  "  King  of 
Rama" — the    name  of   a  river  in    Bosnia,  which  Magyar 
chroniclers  applied  hrst  to  the  surrounding  district  and 
then  to  the  whole  land.     From  that  time  onward,  who- 
ever  the   actual   possessors   of   Rama    might    be,  it  was 
always    included   among    the    titles    of   the    Hungarian 
monarch.     The   Hungarian  sovereigns  continued  to  in- 
terfere in  Bosnian  affairs,  and,  as  in   Montenegro  to-day, 
so   in   Bosnia  there  was  no   national  coinage    until    the 
fourteenth  century.     Even  when  the  rest  of  the  country 
had  been  conquered  by  the  Turks,  Hungarian  viceroys 
lingered    on    in  the  baiiats  of  Jajce    and    Srebrenik    for 
nearly  two  generations.     Towards  the  end  of  the  seven- 
teenth century  the  house  of  Hapsburg  remembered   the 
ancient     claims    of     the    Hungarian     Crown     and     ten 
expeditions    one    after    the    other    culminated    in    that 
J  of    1878.      The    Hungarians,    although    then    hostile    to 
"''the   Occupation,   have    since    become    sensible    of   those 
.'•ights     of     which     Count     Andrassy    spoke     in     1869. 
;  Another    solution,   the    creation    of    a    "  Great    Croatia," 
which  would  include  both  Dalmatia  and  Bosnia  as  well 
as  Croatia,  under  the  House  of  Hapsburg,  is  not  within 
the    range    of    practical    politics.      But    the    respective 
claims    of  Austria  and   Hungary  for   the    possession    of 
Bosnia  might  be  obviated  by  its  erection  into  a  Reiclis- 

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Travels  and  Politics  in  the  Near  East 

land,  on  the  analogy  of  Alsace-Lorraine,  which  would 
belong  to  the  Monarchy  as  a  whole,  not  to  either  half  of 
it.  It  is  the  opinion  of  commercial  men  whom  1  have 
consulted,  that  the  trade  of  the  country  would  be  im- 
mensely developed  by  annexation,  while  politically  a  fii'm 
and  final  answer  would  be  given  to  the  intrigues  against 
the  Occupation.  In  foreign  politics  no  policy  is  so  suc- 
cessful as  that  of  ihe  fait  accompli.  At  present  rumours 
are  constantly  being  circulated  in  Montenegro  and  Servia 
that  Bosnia  is  about  to  be  annexed,  and  the  twentieth 
anniversary  of  the  Occupation,  coinciding  with  the 
Emperor's  Jubilee,  has  this  year  increased  the  agitation. 
Were  the  country  once  amalgamated  with  the  Monarchy 
these  disquieting  rumours  would  be  effectually  silenced. 
But  in  any  case,  whether  Austria-Hungary  annexes  the 
country  or  no,  the  clock  of  civilisation  cannot  be  put 
back  in  Bosnia  and  the  Hercegovina. 


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CHAPTER  IV 

THROUGH  THE  OCCUPIED  TERRITORY 

IF  any  one  had  predicted  twenty  years  ago  that  the 
Hercegovma,  the  scene  of  the  terrible  insurrection 
of  1875,  the  wildest  and  least  known  of  all  the  Turkish 
provinces,  was  destined  to  become  a  peaceful  haunt  of 
tourists,  he  would  have  been  derided  as  a  dreamer  by 
every  one  who  knew  the  country.  But  facts,  as  usual, 
have  falsified  the  forecasts  of  diplomacy,  and  to-day,  after 
twenty  years  of  Austrian  administration,  the  occupied 
territory  is  the  newest  and  not  the  least  charming  "  play- 
ground of  Europe." 

At  the  present  time  there  are  practically  three  ways  of 
entering  the  country.  There  is  the  railway  route  from 
Vienna  by  way  of  Brod,  there  is  the  line  from  Agram  to 
Banjaluka,  and  there  are  the  steamers  from  Trieste,  Fiume, 
or  Gravosa.  It  is  also  possible  to  go  by  diligence  from 
Spalato  over  the  Dinaric  Alps,  through  the  scene  of  the 
terrible  Dalmatian  earthquake  of  this  summer,  down  to 
Livno  in  Bosnia,  and  so  on  to  the  railway  at  Bugojno. 
But  the  last  route,  although  extremely  beautiful,  is  less 
used  than  the  other  three.  For  those  who  wish  to  com- 
bine a  visit  to  Dalmatia  with  a  tour  in  the  occupied 
territory,  Ragusa  is  undoubtedly  the  best  starting-point. 
P'rom  the  Ragusan  harbour  of  Gravosa  a  tiny  little  steamer 
takes  you  over  an  azure  sea  sprinkled  with  islands,  past 
the  famous  plane-trees  of  Cannosa  and  the  old  station  of 
the   Ragusan  fleet   at    Mezzo,  to   the  harbour  of  Stagno 

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Travels  and  Politics 


Grande,  on  the  peninsula  of  Sabbioncello,  once  the  seat  of 
a  bishopric  and  a  pirate  stronghold  from  which  the  early 
sovereigns  of  the  Hercegovina  used  to  ravage  the  Italian 
coast  opposite.  A  rickety  omnibus  crosses  the  isthmus 
in  half  an  hour,  and  drops  you  at  the  harbour  of  Stagno 
Piccolo  on  the  other  side,  a  little  town  almost  as  ruinous 
as  the  fortifications  which  surround  it.  Here  another 
tiny  steamer  awaits  the  traveller,  while  a  whole  boatload 
of  men  and  women,  in  the  picturesque  native,  dress,  are 


"  A    WHOLE    UUATLOAD    OF    MEN"    ANU    \\  OMEN. 
(From  a  Photo,  by  Miss  Chadivick.) 

setting  sail  for  their  work  on  the  mainland.  The  steamer 
stops  at  one  or  two  places  on  the  long  peninsula,  and 
then  goes  straight  across  and  enters  the  mouth  of  the 
Narenta  Canal,  Up  the  muddy  waters  it  pants  along, 
while  weird-looking  aborigines,  descendants  of  those  old 
Xarentans  who  struck  terror  into  the  hearts  of  the  old 
Roman  legionaries,  and  were  the  worst  pirates  of  the 
whole  coast,  paddle  their  primitive  coracles  in  the  wash. 
We  had  heard  much  of  the  dangers  of  the  foul  air  which 
is  said  to  arise  from  these  swamps,  but  since  the  marshes 

132 


in   the   Near   East 

have  been  drained  and  tlie  sluggish  Narenta  forced  into 
a  single  channel,  quinine  is  superfluous  and  malaria  is 
less  deadly,  and  claims  fewer  victims  at  the  river  towns  of 
Fort  Opus  and  Metkovic.  The  latter  place,  which  is  the 
terminus  of  the  steamer,  has  grown  considerably  in 
importance  since  the  canal  was  made.  It  is  here  that  the 
Bosnian  and  Hercegovinian  State  railway  begins,  and 
five  minutes  in  the  train  bring  you  over  the  Dalmatian 
border  into  the  Hercegovina.  The  military  character  of 
the  line  is  at  once  apparent:  the  smart  railway  guard  wnih 
his  picturesque  fez  gives  you  a  martial  salute  as  he 
examines  your  ticket ;  the  obsequious  porter,  clad  in  all 
the  colours  of  the  gorgeous  East,  who  carries  your  port- 
manteau makes  a  profound  obeisance  over  the  kreuzers 
which  he  receives.  Xo  passports  are  now  necessary  for 
travellers  in  the  country,  and  all  that  is  required  of  you 
is  to  fill  in  your  Meldezettel  as  soon  as  you  arrive  at  the 
hotel.  As  for  the  tiny  carriages  of  the  State  railway, 
they  are  fitted  up  with  all  Western  comforts — only  the 
fourth  class,  which  is  provided  for  the  poorest  natives, 
is  of  that  horse-box  variety  still  dear  to  some  English 
companies.  It  is  true  that  the  train  stops — and  some- 
times stops,  as  the  Austrian  officers  say,  "a  Bosnian 
minute" — at  every  station,  but  then  no  one  wants  to 
hurry  in  the  East ;  besides,  there  is  so  much  life  and 
colour  on  a  Hercegovinian  platform.  There  being 
usually  only  one  train  a  day  each  way,  the  whole  popu- 
lation comes  down  to  see  it.  A  dancing-man,  who 
performs  antics  like  a  bear,  will  perhaps  amuse  the 
travellers  while  they  wait ;  the  water-carrier,  too,  is  a 
constant  figure  at  every  station,  and  does  a  large  business 
with  the  Mussulman  inmates  of  the  fourth  class.  It  is  as 
good  as  a  play  to  see  the  latter  coming  forth  in  solemn 
procession  at  the  end  of  their  journey,  each  man  carrying 
the  tiny  roll  of  carpet  on  which  he  has  been  sitting  in  the 

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Travels  and   Politics 

train.  At  the  larger  stations  the  natives  may  be  seen 
squatting  on  their  heels  on  the  platform  devouring  their 
food  and  rolling  their  cigarettes.  The  scenery,  too,  as 
the  train  ambles  along,  is  of  striking  beauty;  here,  for 
instance,  is  Pocitelj — ''  cine  ivalive  Perle,"  as  an  enthusiastic 
traveller  calls  it — -a  perfect  gem  of  a  town,  perched  like 
some  Moorish  robbers'  nest  in  a  semicircle  on  the  grey 
clififs  above  the  green  Narenta.  Before  the  Occupation 
Pocitelj  lived  up  to  its  appearance,  and  its  inhabitants 
were  the  terror  of  their  neighbours ;  but  law  and  order 
now  reign  supreme,  and  it  is  only  on  the  Montenegrin 
frontier  that  an  occasional  affray  with  smugglers  reminds 
the  older  generation  of  the  bygone  Turkish  days. 

But  the  charms  of  Pocitelj  pale  before  the  delights  of 
Mostar.  An  old  Turkish  poet  has  sung  in  enthusiastic 
verse  of  ''  the  perfumed  air,  and  the  bright,  clear  water, 
the  laden  fruit  trees,  and  the  trim  gardens  "  of  the  Herce- 
govinian  capital.  "  From  Mostar,"  cries  Dervish  Pasha, 
"  sprang  mighty  heroes  of  sword  and  pen,  from  Mostar, 
the  home  of  all  the  arts  and  sciences."  No  other  city  can 
match  the  beautiful  span  of  the  famous  old  bridge  from 
which  the  town  derives  its  present  name.  Antiquaries 
may  dispute  as  to  the  origin  of  this  graceful  structure  of 
stone,  beneath  which  the  narrow  Narenta  rushes  past  the 
rocks  on  its  way  to  the  sea.  But  whether  it  be  Roman  or 
Turkish  work,  a  few  centuries  more  or  less  cannot  detract 
from,  or  add  to,  its  incomparable  charm.  Below,  the 
swallows  are  flying  by  hundreds  in  and  out  of  the  crevices 
in  the  cliffs,  while  from  the  tall,  tapering  minarets  on 
either  bank  the  imiezziu  may  soon  be  heard  calling  the 
faithful  to  prayer.  In  the  neighbouring  bazar  the 
Mussulman  Bosniaks  are  washing  their  hands  and  feet 
and  making  ready  for  their  evening  devotions.  Here, 
earlier  in  the  day,  you  will  find  the  East  and  the  West 
elbowing  one  another — smart  Austrian  officers  and  strap- 

134 


in   the  Near  East 

ping  Hercegovinians,  Albanians  with  their  braided  white 
trousers  and  shaven  heads,  tall  Montenegrins  from  over 
the  border,  and  a  sprinkling  of  Dalmatians,  easily  distin- 
guishable from  the  rest  by  their  tiny  scarlet  caps.  A 
peculiarity  of  Mostar  is  the  costume  of  the  Mussulman 


MUSSULMAN    WOMAN"   OF   MOSTAR. 


women,  whose  liuge  blue  cloaks  cover  the  head  with  a 
projection  in  front  like  a  vast  poke-bonnet.  Among 
the  Mussulmans  of  Bosnia  and  the  Hercegovina  poly- 
gamy never  obtained  to  the  same  extent  as  in  the  rest  of 
the  Ottoman  Empire,  and  one  wife  is  considered  a  fair 
allowance  for  even  a  Bosnian  beg.     For  example,  in  the 

135 


Travels  and   Politico 


district  of  Visegrad,  a  very  large  one,  there  are  only  three 
Mussulmans  who  have  more  than  one  wife.  On  high- 
days  and  holidays  you  may  see  a  crowd  of  Christian 
women  from  the  surrounding  villages,  clad  in  white 
knickerbockers,  thick,  woollen,  parti-coloured  leggings, 
and  opauke,  or  even  bare  feet.  Over  the  knickerbockers 
they  wear  a  long  white  garment  of  coarse  striped  cotton, 


I   lll^lsriAX    \\(1\1IX    AT    MciSTAlv'. 
(From  a  Photo,  by  Miss  CImdjvick.) 

and  over  that  again  a  Zouave  embroidered  in  colours. 
When  walking  or  working  they  usually  tuck  up  the  long 
garment  into  their  girdles.  Their  headdress  consists  of  a 
flat  fez,  covered  in  front  with  coins — a  decoration  called 
in  the  vernacular  sirif.  Over  the  fez  there  is  an  embroi- 
dered muslin  or  net  veil,  and  round  their  necks  more  coins 
and  glass  amulets.  Others,  again,  vary  the  headdress  by 
weariiig  a  fez  entirely  covered  by  black  silk  fringe.      The 

136 


in  the  Near  East 

weekday  attire  is  made  of  darker  materials.  Mostar, 
which  is  not  more  than  about  five  centuries  old,  and 
was  of  no  importance  till  the  Turkish  times,  has  grown 
considerably  since  the  Occupation.  At  the  last  census  it 
numbered  17,010  inhabitants,  about  half  of  whom  were 
Mohammedans,  and  it  is  one  of  the  strongest  Mussulman 
towns  in  the  country.  A  friend  of  mine  who  visited  it 
before  the  Occupation  tells  me  that  it  was  one  of  the 
dirtiest  towns  in  Turkey,  and  had  no  better  accommo- 
dation for  strangers  than  was  afforded  by  a  few  wretched 
caravanserais,  where  the  beds  swarmed  with  vermin  and 
the  daylight  poured  in  at  the  roof.  But  smce  1891  the 
place  has  possessed  an  excellent  hotel,  built  by  the 
Government,  commanding  a  beautiful  view  of  the  river. 
The  porter,  a  veteran  of  the  campaign  of  '78,  meets  you 
on  the  railway  platform,  and  tells  you  the  number  of 
your  room  before  you  have  left  the  station.  But  the 
great  disadvantage  of  Mostar  is  its  climate,  for,  placed  as 
it  is  between  two  bare  hills,  it  is  scorching  in  summer,  and 
when  the  boi'a  blows  it  is  almost  impossible  to  go  out.  I 
have  fortunately  had  no  personal  experience  of  tiie 
papadaci,  a  peculiarly  venomous  kind  of  mosquito,  of 
which  the  inhabitants  are  fond  of  talking.  An  official 
who  had  spent  fifteen  years  in  the  place  told  me,  how- 
ever, that  planting  had  greatly  improved  the  climate  since 
he  first  came  there.  There  are  several  very  pleasant 
excursions  within  easy  reach  of  the  town.  When  the 
heat  of  the  day  was  over,  and  the  sun  no  longer  scorched 
the  bare  rocks  of  Mount  Hum,  we  drove  behind  a  capital 
pair  of  Hercegovinian  horses  along  the  plain  which 
stretches  southward  from  the  town.  Our  driver,  clad  in 
the  picturesque  native  dress  with  a  many-coloured 
cunimerbiind  twined  round  and  round  his  waist,  pointed 
to  the  flourishing  establishment  for  the  improvement  of 
viticulture   and   fruit-growing  which   we    passed  on  the 

137 


Travels  and  Politics  in  the  Near  East 

road.  A  little  farther  on,  an  ancient  stone  cistern  by  the 
roadside  testified  to  the  care  which  the  Turkish  rulers 
of  the  Hercegovina  had  devoted  to  the  storage  of  water 
in  the  fiery  summers.  At  Blagaj,  the  old  capital  of  the 
land  at  a  time  when  Mostar,  as  a  national  ballad  says,  was 
"  only  a  hamlet,"  we  left  the  carriage  and  walked  under 
the  guidance  of  two  sharp-eyed  lads  along  the  narrow 
path  between  the  cliff  and  the  stream.  These  native 
urchins  are  as  sharp  as  any  London  street  arab ;  in 
a  moment  they  divine  the  wishes  of  the  stranger,  and 
I  had  but  to  make  a  sign  to  set  them  scouring  the 
hillside  for  flowers  and  twigs  of  pomegranate  and  myrtle. 
The  grey  rocks  were  all  ablaze  with  the  scarlet  glow  of 
the  pomegranate,  while  masses  of  white  clematis  hung 
festooned  on  the  bushes.  A  sudden  bend  in  the  path  dis- 
closed a  gigantic  rock  rising  perpendicular  from  the 
stream,  which  flowed  clear  as  crystal  from  a  cavern  at  its 
base.  A  multitude  of  birds  glided  ceaselessly  over  the 
water  or  flew  in  and  out  of  the  countless  crannies  in  the 
limestone  clift',  while  the  fish  darted  to  and  fro  in  the 
rapid  current  of  the  Buna.  Nestling  under  the  shadow 
of  the  rocks  at  one  side  of  the  cavern,  hard  by  a  ruined 
mosque  is  a  tiny  house,  the  goal  of  many  a  pious  Moslem's 
footsteps,  containing  the  tombs  of  a  Mohammedan  saint 
and  his  faithful  servant.  On  the  wall  above,  the  scimitar 
and  battleaxe  of  the  holy  man  still  remind  the  pilgrims  of 
the  unbelievers  whom  he  slew,  while  every  evening  the 
custodian  religiously  places  a  jug  of  water  and  a  towel  by 
the  coffin  for  the  saint's  ablution.  Every  morning,  so  they 
told  us  in  awestruck  tones,  the  towel  is  moist  and  the  jug 
half  empty.  To  a  wooden  verandah  overhanging  the 
stream  a  skiff  is  moored,  in  which,  to  the  immense  delight 
of  our  two  small  companions,  1  pulled  myself  inside  the 
mouth  of  the  cavern.  Huge  stalactites  hang  from  thereof 
and  almost  kiss  the  deep-blue  water,  and  in  the  distance 

138 


Travels   and   Politics 

far  under  the  mountain  one  hears  a  noise  as  of  thunder. 
No  one  has  ever  navigated  this  subterranean  stream,  but  the 
local  legend  tells  how  one  day  a  shepherd  threw  his  staff 
into  the  Zalomska  river,  which  disappears  in  the  earth 
some  thirteen  miles  away,  and  how  his  father,  a  miller  at 
Blagaj,  found  it  floating  in  the  Buna.  Father  and  son 
communicated  with  one  another  and  resolved  to  profit  by 
this  freak  of  nature.  Every  day  the  shepherd  slew  one  of 
iiis  master's  sheep,  threw  its  carcass  into  the  Zalomska, 
and  so  despatched  it  to  his  father,  who  fished  it  out  of  the 
Buna  a  few  hours  later.  At  last  the  owner  of  the  flock 
became  suspicious,  set  a  watch  upon  his  shepherd,  and 
one  day  caught  him  in  the  act  of  throwing  a  dead  sheep 
into  the  stream.  That  evening  the  miller  saw  in  the 
waters  of  the  Buna,  instead  of  the  usual  sheep,  the 
headless  trunk  of  his  son. 

High  on  the  rocks  above  the  source  of  the  Buna  there 
stand  the  majestic  ruins  of  "  Stephen's  Castle,"  or  Stjepa- 
nograd.  There,  four  centuries  ago,  Duke  Stephen  Kosaca, 
from  whose  ducal  title  the  Hercegovina  derived  its  German 
name,  defied  all  comers,  till  his  own  son  made  him  a 
captive  in  his  own  impregnable  stronghold.  "  Here  do  I 
sit  a  prisoner,  Stephen  Kosaca,"  says  an  old  inscription, 
carved  on  a  stone  of  the  dismantled  fortress,  where  now 
the  eagles  have  their  eyrie.  Here,  too,  stood  the  Monte- 
negrin gunners,  when  the  bitter  cry  of  their  bretlu-en 
summoned  them  to  the  Hercegovina  in  the  great  uprising 
of  twenty  years  ago.  To-day  the  old  walls  look  down 
upon  the  new  life  and  the  modern  spirit  which  Austria 
has  infused  into  the  land,  upon  the  railway  which  leads 
to  Metkovic,  and  the  fine,  broad  road  which  goes  towards 
Montenegro.  Peace  and  industry  now  reign  supreme 
where  all  was  once  bloodshed  ;  and  the  very  dogs — long, 
lanky,  kind-eyed  creatures,  very  different  from  the  curs  of 
Greece   and  Asia   Minor — fawn    upon    the   stranger   and 

140 


In   the  Near  East 

would  follow  him  back  to  Mostar,  if  he  would  accept 
their  company.  Here  in  the  Orient  there  is  no  torture  of 
animals  such  as  mars  a  holiday  in  Southern  Italy,  and 
even  the  pigeon-shooting  at  Ilidze  is  now  a  thing  of  the 
past. 

The  source  of  the  Buna  is  not  the  only  beauty  of 
Mostar's  surroundings.  On  Sunday  evenings  all  the  rank 
and  fashion  of  the  Hercegovinian  capital,  the  dapper 
officers  of  the  garrison  with  their  wives  and  children,  and 
the  well-to-do  Christians,  Catholics  and  Orthodox  alike, 
betake  themselves  to  the  lofty  rocks  an  hour  distant,  from 
which  the  waters  of  the  Radobolje  rise  and  supply  the 
town  with  water.  The  local  legend  tells  how,  in  a  time 
of  great  drought,  an  angel  struck  the  rock  at  this  spot, 
like  another  Moses,  and  when  the  people  rushed  to  drink, 
cried  out  to  them  :  "Kadi  boljc"  ("  Make  haste  !"),  whence 
the  present  name  of  the  place.  No  one  who  has  seen 
Delphi  can  help  being  struck  with  the  resemblance  of  that 
famous  spot  to  this  unknown  valley.  But  the  innkeeper 
has  followed  in  the  wake  of  the  occupying  army,  and  the 
red  vintage  and  excellent  tobacco  of  the  Hercegovina 
would  make  one  believe  that  one  was  in  some  German 
Garteird'iiihschaff,  were  it  not  for  the  melancholy  strains 
of  the  gnsla,  that  favourite  one-stringed  instrument  of 
the  Southern  Slavs,  which  are  re-echoed  by  the  cliffs.  Of 
the  bygone  glories  of  the  ancient  Servian  tsars,  of  "  the 
king's  son,  Marko,"  the  greatest  hero  of  the  South  Slavonic 
muse,  of  Kossovo's  fatal  field,  and  of  the  traitor  Brankovic 
— so  sang  the  singer,  till  the  shadows  deepened  and  the 
setting  sun  illumined  with  a  purple  glow  the  snow-capped 
range  of  the  Velez  Planina. 

But  no  one  can  have  any  idea  of  Hercegovinian  moun- 
tain scenery  until  he  has  travelled  along  the  line  which 
connects  Mostar  with  Sarajevo.  For  a  great  portion  of 
the  journey  the  road,  the  river,  and  the  railway  run  side 

141 


Travels  and   Politics 

by  side.  In  places  the  perpendicular  cliffs  have  been 
blasted  away,  to  make  room  for  trains  and  vehicles  to 
pass.  At  one  moment  you  cross  the  foaming  waters  of 
the  Narenta  on  a  boldly  constructed  iron  bridge,  at 
another  you  are  winding  in  and  out  of  a  tunnel  hewn  in 
the  solid  rock.  For  miles  the  narrow  defile  of  the  Narenta 
traverses  the  solitude  of  the  mountains,  where  in  the  old 
days  no  Turkish  tax-gatherer  ever  penetrated.  In  one 
lovely  valley  there  dwells  to  this  day  a  race  of  hermits 
whose  village,  called  Dreznica,  concealed  hundreds  of 
golden  pieces  bearing  the  image  and  superscription  of  the 
old  Byzantine  princes.  Once  upon  a  time,  so  the  story 
goes,  these  anchorites  gave  a  falcon  of  striking  beauty  to 
the  Sultan,  who  made  them  free  from  taxes  for  all  time. 
A  little  farther  on,  the  rocks  assume  fantastic  shapes  such 
as  one  sees  in  the  strongholds  of  the  Dolomites.  Here 
needles  of  stone  point  skyward,  there  vast  mushrooms 
seem  to  be  growing  out  of  the  cliff',  ever  and  anon  some 
mountain  torrent  rushes  down  from  the  mountain-side  to 
join  the  Narenta  ;  and  in  one  place  the  valley  opens  and 
the  shining  yellow  barracks  and  a  modern  landcs  ararisclies 
Hotel  proclaim  the  spot  to  be  Jabhinica,  the  new  health 
resort  which  the  Government  has  created  in  the  heart 
of  the  Hercegovinian  mountains.  From  the  parklike 
grounds  of  the  trim  hotel  you  look  upon  the  glaciers  of 
the  Prenj  mountains— ■"  snow-white  meadows,"  as  the 
aborigines  picturesquely  called  them  in  the  old  Illyric — 
which  contrast  with  the  green  plain  and  the  flourishing 
cherry-trees  around.  Not  many  years  ago  a  filthy  Turkish 
halt  stood  in  the  place  of  this  comfortable  house,  which 
is  furnished  throughout  with  pretty  Bosnian  rugs  and 
hangings  from  the  Government  workrooms  at  Sarajevo. 
The  landlady  is  a  most  excellent  cook,  and  welcomes 
the  traveller  with  a  geniality  which  greatly  adds  to  the 
pleasure  of  his  visit.      The    bedrooms   are    spotless,   the 

142 


in  the   Near  East 

prices  low,  and  the  trout  delicious.  While  the  visitors' 
book  is  full  of  appreciation,  the  book  for  complaints  is 
empty,  and  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  the  cuisine  and 
accommodation  could  be  improved.  In  olden  days 
Jablanica  was  a  centre  of  the  Bogomile  faith,  that  curious, 
mystic  heresy  which  defied  the  thunders  of  Hildebrand, 
and,  by  dividing  the  Christians  against  each  other,  made 
Bosnia  an  easy  prey  for  the  Turk.  Scattered  up  and 
down  the  Hercegovina  the  tombs  of  the  Bogomiles,  great 
square  blocks  of  stone,  still  tell  of  their  numbers,  and  the 
Mussulmans  of  Jablanica  are  said  to  be  their  descendants. 
For  here  alone  in  Islam  do  the  women  go  unveiled — 
a  privilege  which  their  Bogomile  forebears  reserved  to 
themselves  when  they  embraced  the  Mohammedan 
religion  at  the  time  of  the  Turkish  conquest.  Around 
this  quiet  valley  the  fight  must  have  been  very  hot,  for 
the  hillsides  are  thickly  covered  with  gravestones,  and 
the  banks  of  the  Narenta  from  here  to  Konjica,  the  old 
frontier  town  of  the  Hercegovina,  are  one  vast  mausoleum 
of  mediaeval  warriors.  It  used  to  be  thought  that  the 
Bogomiles  were  quite  extinct  as  a  sect  long  ago.  But  it 
is  stated  by  a  recent  ecclesiastical  historian  that  only  a 
few  years  before  the  Austrian  Occupation  a  family  named 
Helez,  living  near  Konjica,  abandoned  the  '*  Bogomile 
madness"  for  the  Mohammedan  faith.  We  saw  ourselves 
a  fine  specimen  of  a  Bogomile  tombstone  between 
Jablanica  and  this  place.  It  was  at  Konjica,  now  the 
seat  of  the  district  authorities,  that  the  parliament  of 
the  old  Bosnian  kingdom  met  in  1446  to  pronounce 
sentence  on  these  heretics  who  fled,  to  the  number  of 
40,000,  into  the  Hercegovina.  The  document  embodying 
the  resolutions  of  this  grand  council  has  been  preserved 
and  bears  the  name  and  seal  of  the  king.  It  provided 
that  the  Bogomiles  "  shall  neither  build  new-  churches 
nor  restore  those  that  are  falling  into  decay,"  and  may  be 

143 


Travels  and   Politics 

regarded  as  the  death-warrant  of  the  Bosnian  kingdom. 
Nowadays  Konjica  is  the  starting-point  for  the  steep 
climb  up  to  the  heights  of  Ivan,  the  watershed  between 
the  Adriatic  and  the  Black  Sea.  Slowly  we  pant  up  the 
cog-wheel  railway,  traversing  on  iron  girders  chasms  of 
appalling  depth,  until  we  steam  out  of  the  tunnel  at  the 
summit  and  find  that  we  have  left  the  Hercegovina 
behind  us.  PYom  this  p(jint  down  to  Sarajevo,  about 
twenty-live  miles  away,  the  line  for  the  most  part 
descends  through  pleasant  scenery.  A  short  distance 
outside  the  capital  a  small  branch  diverges  to  Ilidze, 
wjiither  the  yellow  and  red  carriages  of  the  local  trains 
carry  their  hundreds  during  the  season  ;  and  then  the 
traveller  finds  himself  at  "golden  Saraj,"  the  centre  of 
official  life  and  society  in  this  land. 

Modern  Sarajevo  differs  not  a  little  from  the  Bosna 
Saraj  of  the  Turkish  times.  In  the  first  place,  the  popu- 
lation has  largely  increased,  and  the  Bosnian  capital  bids 
fan-  to  leave  Sofia  and  Belgrade  soon  behind  it  in  this,  as 
in  several  other  respects.  At  the  last  census  Sarajevo 
contained,  exclusive  of  the  military,  37,713,  of  whom 
17,074  were  Mussulmans,  10,473  Roman  Catholics,  5,855 
Orthodox,  and  3,994  Jews,  the  remainder  belonging  to 
other  confessions.  Inclusive  of  the  garrison,  this  total 
reached  41,173.  In  order  to  accommodate  this  increased 
population,  which  had  risen  by  43*57  per  cent,  in  the 
brief  space  of  ten  years,  there  has  been  a  large  amount 
of  building  in  the  town,  and  new  quarters  have  sprung 
up  which  did  not  exist  in  the  Turkish  days.  Hence 
the  cost  of  house-rent,  which  was  high  in  the  early  years 
of  the  Occupation,  has  now  considerably  fallen.  The 
large  plain,  which  extends  westward  and  would  have  been 
preferred  by  some  as  the  site  of  the  new  city  at  the  time 
of  the  Occupation,  affords  ample  scope  for  expansion, 
and  the  principal  railway  station  has  been  placed  at  a 

144 


in   the   Near   East 

great  distance  from  the  centre  of  the  town,  because  it 
is  considered  that  one  day  the  capital  will  completely 
surround  it.  In  point  of  situation,  indeed,  Sarajevo  is 
the  most  favoured  of  all  Balkan  capitals.  It  is  traversed 
by  a  small  stream,  called  by  the  poetic  name  of  the 
Miljacka,  or  "gently  murmuring,"  which  has  been 
dammed  up  so  as  to  increase  the  amount  of  water. 
Inferior  in  this  point  alone  to  the  Servian  capital  with 
its  two  splendid  rivers,  Sarajevo  has  many  other  advan- 
tages which  Belgrade  does  not  possess.  The  town  lies 
picturesquely  in  a  hollow  between  two  hills  and  is 
commanded  towards  the  east  by  a  castle,  from  whose 
bastions  there  is  an  admirable  view  of  the  old  wooden 
Turkish  houses  and  the  modern  European  buildings. 
Unlike  Athens  and  Belgrade,  it  possesses  a  considerable 
amount  of  vegetation.  No  doubt  the  modern  part  of 
the  town  has  greatly  grown  at  the  expense  of  the  Oriental, 
but  Sarajevo  is  still  the  most  Oriental  city  of  the  Balkan 
Peninsula.  In  Belgrade  and  Sofia  you  have  nothing 
but  brand-new  edifices,  while  in  Athens  there  is  no 
alternative  between  the  venerable  ruins  of  antiquity  and 
the  modern  German  town  constructed  under  King  Otho. 
But  at  Saraj  the  West  and  the  East  meet,  and  the 
Oriental  houses  with  their  courtyards  and  gardens  have 
not  been  improved  out  of  existence  as  at  Sofia.  You 
may  take  a  walk  through  the  bazar  or  carsija,  and 
imagine  yourself  in  a  purely  Eastern  town,  while  at  a 
few  minutes'  distance  the  shops  of  the  Franje  Josipa 
Ulica  transport  you  back  to  an  Austrian  city.  In  point 
of  picturesqueness  the  Sarajevo  bazar  is  unrivalled  in 
the  Near  East.  It  cannot  perhaps  be  compared  with 
the  suks  of  Tunis  or  the  large  covered  bazar  at  Con- 
stantinople, because  it  is  almost  entirely  in  the  open 
air.  To  see  it  at  its  best  one  should  visit  it  on  a  market- 
day.     Then  the  country  folk  come  in  from  all  the  neigh- 

145  L 


Travels   and    Politics 


bourhood  with  their  wares,  every  one  of  them  in  costume. 
Here   and    there    you    may   see    a    Bosniak   carrying   a 


"A    BOSNIAK   CARRYING    A    KAM    ON    HIS    HACK. 

ram  on  his  back,  and  I  noticed  one  or  two  of  the 
peasants  panting  and  sweating  beneath  their  Hving  load 
as  far  as  the  castle,  while  the  animals  looked  on  with  the 

146 


ill   the  Near   East 

most  sublime  complacency.     A  good  many  of  the  mer- 
chants are  Spanish  Jews,  who  wear  thick  fur  coats,  Hke 
Svengah,    in    summer    and    winter    ahke.      They    have 
picked   up   German    remarkably   well,    and   there    is    no 
difficulty  in   making  purchases   in  that  language — a  fact 
which  is  all  the  more  curious  because  they  never  showed 
much   aptitude   for  the   Bosnian   idiom.      Their  women 
are    easily   distinguishable    by     their    headdress,    which 
consists  of  an  unbecoming  stiff  silk  cap  trimmed  round 
the  edge  with  sequins  and  completely  covering  the  hair. 
As    in    all    Oriental    bazars,   each    trade    has   a    quarter 
devoted  to  its  particular  industry,  so  that  all  the  shoe- 
makers are  in   one  part    and    all    the    metal-workers  in 
another.      There  is  here  far  less  of  the  bargaining  which 
is   inevitable  at  Constantinople,   and   I   have  known    an 
instance  where  a  salesman  was  absolutely  indifferent  to 
the  sale  of    his  goods,   and    declined  to  abate  a  single 
kreuzer  of   his  price.      At    Sarajevo   only  the    Bosniaks 
are  permitted  to  have    stalls    in  the    bazar — a   privilege 
which  they  much    appreciate,  and  which   is  shared    by 
all  the  confessions  alike.      Only  one  part  of  the  bazar 
is  under  cover,  and  is  almost  entirely  devoted  to  textile 
fabrics.      In  the  midst  of  the  bazar  is  the  great  beauty 
of  Sarajevo — the  famous  mosque,  called  Begova-Dzamija, 
which  was  built  by  Usref,  Pasha  of  Bosnia  and  conqueror 
of  Jajce  in  the  second  quarter  of  the  sixteenth  century. 
Usref  was  the  real  founder  of  Turkish  Saraj,  which  under 
the  old   Bosnian  kingdom  had  little  importance,  and  of 
all  his  works  this  mosque  is  the  finest.     Standing  in  a 
cool    courtyard,    where   the    plash    of    a  beautiful   foun- 
tain  never  ceases,  and  a  splendid  lime-tree   of  vast  age 
gives  shade  to  the  worshipper  as  he  perform  his  ablutions, 
the  Begova-Dzamija  is  typical  of  that  repose  which  the 
Moslem  so  dearly  loves,  and  of  that  cleanliness  which 
in  his  religion  is  not  second,  but  equivalent,  to  godliness. 

147 


Travels  and  Politics  in  the  Near  East 

Out  in  the  courtyard,  too,  is  a  quaint  old  stone,  the  top 
of  which  is  traversed  by  a  groove  exactly  the  length  of 
a  Turkish  ell.  The  local  legend  says  that  a  pasha,  hearing 
how  the  merchants  used  various  measures,  set  up  this 
stone,  that  all  might  know  the  exact  length  of  a  Turkish 
ell,  or  cirsiii.  To-day  no  such  necessity  exists,  but  this 
grooved  block  still  bears  the  name  of  "  the  ell-stone,"  and 
reminds  the  worshipper  of  that  injunction  of  the  Koran 
which  forbids  the  faithful  to  use  false  measures.  An  old 
clock-tower  and  some  Mussulman  graves,  one  of  the 
founder,  another  of  the  late  mayor,  complete  the  picture, 
while  over  the  way  an  old  Mohammedan  school  still 
remains,  a  striking  contrast  to  the  spick-and-span  ScJien'at- 
scJuilc  which  we  have  already  described.  Of  the  modern 
buildings  the  two  handsomest  are  the  new  town  hall  and 
the  Government  offices  ;  the  former,  which  stands  on  the 
bank  of  the  river,  has  only  been  completed  within  the 
last  few  years,  and  is  constructed  in  the  old  Bosnian 
style  of  architecture  and  in  the  two  colours,  red  and  yellow, 
which  are  those  of  the  country.  The  rooms  inside  are 
extremely  handsome,  and  one  of  them  in  particular  is 
expressly  adapted  for  public  entertainments.  The  Govern- 
ment olBces  at  the  other  end  of  the  town  are  large  and 
roomy,  and  their  ample  corridors  are  filled  every  morning 
by  groups  of  picturesque  natives  waiting  to  have  inter- 
views with  the  authorities.  Another  valuable  institution 
of  the  new  era  is  the  museum,  which  forms  an  historical 
and  scientific  epitome  of  Bosnia  and  the  Hercegovina. 
Even  persons  to  whom  the  name  of  museum  is  anathema 
cannot  fail  to  be  interested  in  the  collection  of  figures 
dressed  in  the  costumes  of  dififerent  parts  of  the  country 
and  placed  in  appropriate  surroundings.  Here,  amidst 
the  old  wood-carving  of  a  harem,  you  may  see  the  figures 
of  Moslem  ladies.  Here,  too,  you  have  tall  Herce- 
govinians,  handsomely   dressed  Bosniaks,  and  an    occa- 

149 


Travels  and  Politics  in  the  Near  East 

sional  Albanian  and  Bulgarian — for  the  museum  is  chiefly, 
but  not  exclusively,  devoted  to  the  inhabitants  and  pro- 
ducts of  the  occupied  territory.  The  collection  of  gems 
and  coins  is  of  much  historical  value,  and  the  fauna  and 
flora  are  very  rich.  This  collection  is  indeed  one  of  the 
sharpest  contrasts  between  Bosnia  and  Turkey  proper, 
for  the  Ottoman  Government  rarely  pays  the  smallest 
attention  to  matters  of  this  kind,  and,  like  the  dog  in  the 
manger,  forbids  foreigners  to  do  for  it  what  it  is  too  lazy 
or  too  suspicious  to  do  for  itself. 

From  a  picturesque  point  of  view  Sarajevo,  like  Bel- 
grade and  Athens,  suffers  from  the  electric  tram,  which 
traverses  the  Appel-Quai,  along  the  right  bank  of  the 
Miljacka,  but  this  Western  mode  of  locomotion  has  not 
been  allowed  to  spoil  the  shady  turn  of  the  river  where 
the  Mussulman  delights  to  drink  his  coffee  in  the  garden 
of  the  Beiidhasi.  It  is  near  this  part  of  the  river  that  the 
town  is  most  artistic.  On  the  left  bank  tier  after  tier  of 
wooden  Turkish  houses  peer  out  of  the  greenery,  with 
here  and  there  a  minaret  rising  above  the  foliage.  Here, 
too,  the  river  is  not  embanked,  but  left  to  nature,  and 
instead  of  a  level  promenade  there  are  charming  contrasts 
between  the  undulating  shore  and  the  rocks  which  here 
and  there  rise  direct  from  the  river-bed.  Formerly  Sara- 
jevo, like  all  Turkish  towns,  possessed  a  large  number 
of  Mussulman  cemeteries,  whose  gravestones  stood  at  all 
angles,  and  whose  neglected  vegetation  formed  green 
oases  between  the  houses — for  as  every  one  knows  the 
Mussulman  loves  to  live  in  close  proximity  to  the  last 
resting-place  of  his  kinsman.  This  was  one  of  the  diffi- 
culties with  which  the  Austrians  had  to  deal  when  they 
entered  the  country,  for  these  picturesque  cemeteries 
were  permanent  obstacles  to  the  expansion  of  the  town. 
Gradually,  however,  this  difficulty  has  been  overcome :  some 
have  disappeared,  others  have  been  turned  into  gardens, 

1^0 


Travels  and  Politics 

but  here  and  there  one  still  comes  across  a  few  stones, 
while  the  hills  above  the  town  are  still  covered  with  Jewish 
and  Mussulman  graves.  One  historic  monument  has  not 
been  allowed  to  fall  into  decay — the  Mosque  of  Ali  Pasha, 
towards  the  entrance  of  the  town,  where  the  insurgents 
made  a  desperate  resistance  to  the  Army  of  Occupation 
on  the  memorable  19th  of  August,  1878,  when  Sarajevo 
fell,  the  second  time  in  its  history  that  the  Bosnian 
capital,  temporarily  occupied  by  Prince  Eugen  in  1697, 
came  into  the  hands  of  the  Austrians.  Mohammedan 
fanaticism  now  finds  vent  in  the  weekly  exercises  of  the 
dancing  and  howling  dervishes,  which  take  place  in  the 
Sinan  tekkeh,  or  cloister.  When  I  visited  this  building 
I  was  first  of  all  escorted  into  a  cafe,  where  a  number 
of  people  were  sitting,  playing  cards  and  drinking  coffee. 
Traversing  a  stableyard  I  reached  the  wooden  gallery  of  the 
place  in  which  the  dervishes  perform.  I  expected  every 
moment  that  the  gallery  would  fall  down,  as  it  was  sup- 
ported by  only  one  pillar  on  either  side,  and  creaked 
and  groaned  with  every  movement  of  the  spectators. 
There  was  also  a  latticed  gallery  for  women.  There  were 
fourteen  dervishes  in  the  building,  arranged  in  three  lines 
of  one,  nine,  and  fom^  respectively.  The  leadei"  in  front 
kept  bowing  his  head  and  kissing  the  ground,  swaying 
his  body,  and  every  now  and  again  uttering  cries  of 
"  Allah  !  "  and  "  Mohammed  !  "  The  others  followed  his 
example,  one  of  them  being  alwavs  late  in  his  movements. 
This  performance  began  a  little  after  nine,  and  about 
ten  we  were  told  that  there  would  be  no  dancing,  as  at 
least  thirty  dervishes  were  required  for  that.  I  afterwards 
found  that  the  best  of  the  dervishes  had  gone  to  the 
Exhibition  at  Buda-Pesth,  so  that  here,  as  in  Constanti- 
nople, their  religious  ecstasies  have  been  turned  into  a 
show,  to  which  the  visitor  is  expected  to  contribute  a 
small  offering. 

152 


in   the   Near   East 

Of  all  their  improvements  near  the  capital  the 
Austrians  are  proudest  of  the  watering-place  which  they 
have  created  at  llidze,  about  seven  miles  distant.  It  is 
true  that  the  sulphur-baths  of  Ilidze  were  known  to  the 
Romans,  who  built  a  town  there,  of  which  considerable 
remains  have  been  discovered.  In  the  Middle  Ages,  too, 
here  was  the  centre  of  the  Government,  and  the  baths 
enjoyed  considerable  reputation  under  the  Turks.  But 
at  the  time  of  the  Occupation  the  arrangements  were  of 
the  most  primitive  description,  so  that  the  history  of 
Ilidze  as  a  bath  may  be  said,  like  all  other  civilised  insti- 
tutions in  the  country,  to  date  from  the  present  irgiiiic. 
A  constant  service  of  trains  takes  you  out  there  during 
the  season,  and  on  Sundays  and  holidays  le  tout  Sarajevo 
assembles  at  Ilidze.  Special  compartments  are  on  this, 
as  on  all  the  lines,  reserved  for  Mussulman  women,  and 
as  a  curious  instance  of  Western  progress  I  noted  a  special 
van  for  bicycles,  which  are  very  popular  with  the  nativ^es. 
Three  hotels  and  a  restaurant  provide  for  the  visitors,  and 
it  is  the  fashion  in  the  season  to  take  supper  there,  or  to 
reside  there  altogether,  and  go  into  town  every  day.  A 
very  low  scale  of  charges  has  been  drawn  up  with  a  view 
of  inducing  people  to  come  from  a  distance — in  short, 
Ilidze  has  now  most  of  the  attractions,  without  the  high 
prices,  of  "  European  "  watering-places.  The  inhabitants 
take  special  interest  in  the  three  bears,  natives  of  the 
Bosnian  mountains,  whose  cage  is  one  of  the  features  of 
the  grounds.  When  we  first  saw  them  two  years  ago, 
Mali,  the  "  little  one,"  was  much  bullied  by  Misko,  the 
tyrant  of  the  three,  and  filled  the  air  with  his  piteous 
howls,  but  this  year  we  found  him  bigger  and  somewhat 
more  courageous.  Every  visitor  takes  as  a  matter  of 
course  the  drive  of  two  and  a  half  miles  to  the  sources 
of  the  Bosna  at  the  foot  of  Mount  Igman.  The  natural 
beauties  of    this  spring,  which    is  clear  as  crystal,  have 

153 


Travels  and   Politics 

been  too  much  "  improved"  to  my  taste,  and  the  artiticial 
embankments,  bridges,  and  gardens  might  well  have  been 
spared.  The  swimming-bath  in  the  other  stream,  the 
Zeljesnica,  is  a  great  attraction,  and  doctors  extol  highly 
the  sulphur  springs  of  the  place.  During  the  race  week 
in  June  it  is  impossible  to  get  a  room  in  the  hotels,  and 
the  presence  of  Madame  von  Kallay  there  gives  the  place 
social  importance. 

From  the  present  to  the  former  capital  of  the  country, 
which,  previous  to  the  middle  of  the  present  century,  was 


STREET  IN   TNAVNTK. 

(From  a  Phoic.  by  Miss  Chadwitk.) 


Travnik,  is  an  easy  journey  of  barely  four  hours  by  rail 
through  beautiful  country  intersected  by  the  yellow 
Bosna  for  the  greater  part  of  the  distance.  At  two  places 
in  this  valley,  where  now  all  is  peaceful,  the  army  of  the 
Occupation  had  to  fight  its  way  twenty  years  ago.  At 
the  junction  of  Lasva  we  leave  the  main  line,  which 
follows  the  Bosna,  and  branch  off  to  Travnik  past  one 
of  the  chief  wood  company's  establishments.  Travnik 
does  not,  of  course,  possess  the  political  importance  that 

154 


in  the  Near   East 

it  had  when  it  was  the  residence  of  the  Turkish  Governor. 
But  it  contained  at  the  last  census  a  popuhition  of  6,894, 
and  is  one  of  the  purest  Mohammedan  towns  in  the 
country,  although  the  Catholics  are  on  the  increase  there. 
Should  this  branch  line  ever  be  prolonged  to  the 
Adriatic  at  Spalato,  its  commercial  value  would  be  much 
enhanced,  and  in  the  interval  between  my  two  visits  I 
noticed  a  considerable  advance  in  its  development.  Last 
year,  for  instance,  the  local  authorities  thought  it  de- 
sirable to  build  a  new  hotel,  containing  a  theatre,  an 
officers'  casino,  and  a  hall  where  entertainments  can 
be  given,  so  that  it  contrasts  very  pleasantly  with  most 
towns  of  the  same  size  in  England.  But  these  modern 
improvements  have  not  in  the  least  detracted  from  its 
Oriental  charm.  No  place  in  Bosnia  is  so  famous  for  its 
Mussulman  tombs — huge  edifices  fenced  in  with  u'on 
railings  and  covered  with  canopies,  like  the  immense 
state-beds  of  our  ancestors.  These  tiirbcli,  which  are 
almost  as  large  as  houses,  are,  for  the  most  part,  the  last 
resting-places  of  the  Mohammedan  governors  of  Bosnia. 
Another  historic  memorial  of  a  very  different  kind  is  the 
Cafe  Dervent,  where  the  unfortunate  Archduke  Rudolph 
drank  the  Turkish  coffee,  for  which  the  establishment 
is  famous,  during  his  visit  to  Travnik.  The  cup  out  of 
which  he  drank  and  the  glass  which,  filled  with  water, 
invariably  accompanies  coffee  in  the  Near  East,  are  still 
preserved  ;  but  the  cafe  itself  seemed  to  me  more  and 
more  ruinous  and  fly-blown  each  time  that  I  sat  down 
by  the  rushing  stream  in  its  shady  garden.  The  gardens 
and  the  abundance  of  fresh  water  are,  indeed,  the  delights 
of  Travnik,  whose  name  means  "  the  grassplot,"  and 
whose  situation  is  such  as  Mussulmans  love.  The  long, 
straggling  street,  of  which  the  town  chiefly  consists,  is 
full  on  a  market-day  of  the  quaintest  figures.  Then  many 
Catholics  come  in  from  the   country,  and  you   may  see 

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Travels  and  Politics 

tattooed  women  among  them,  for  in  the  district  round 
Travnik  and  Jajce  tattooing  is  by  no  means  an  un- 
common practice  of  the  female  CatlioHcs,  although  it  is 
almost  unknown  in  the  other  confessions,  and  not  often 
observed  in  the  case  of  Catholic  men.  It  is  supposed 
bv  Dr.  Gliick,  a  medical  man,  who  has  investigated 
the  subject,  that  at  the  time  of  the  Turkish  conc^uest, 
when  conversions  to  Islam  were  frecjuent,  the  Catholic 
priests    hit    upon    this   way   of    preventing    their    flocks 


IX    THE   BAZAK   AT    TKAVMK. 
{From  a  Photo,  by  Miss  Chadwick.) 

from  going  over  to  the  creed  of  the  conquerors.  Now 
that  the  necessity  for  such  a  precaution  has  ceased 
to  exist  the  custom  is  still  kept  up,  and  old  women 
usually  officiate  as  tattooers.  Another  curiosity  of  the 
Travnik  market  was  an  important  Mussulman,  armed 
with  a  blue  stick,  who  went  about  sampling  the  wares 
which  the  country  folk  had  brought  in.  The  old  castle, 
which  dates  from  the  days  of  the  Bosnian  kings,  looks 
down  grimly  on  this  variegated  scene,  while  a  new  Jesuit 
academy  and  a  modern  Mussulman  college  point  to  the 

156 


in   the   Near   East 

difference  which  exists  between  the  rehgious  toleration 
of  the  nineteenth,  and  the  fierce  theological  conflicts  of 
the  fifteenth  century.  Here,  too,  one  notices  the  con- 
trast between  the  extreme  affability  and  pleasant  manner 
of  the  Slav  Mussulman  and  the  aloofness  of  his  co- 
religionist at  Constantinople.  Here  there  seems  to  be 
no  dislike  of  the  ScJiicabi — an  elastic  term  in  which 
the  Bosniaks  include  not  merely  Austrians  (even  Austrian 
Slavs)  and  South  Germans,  but  all  "  Europeans  " — while 
there  we  are  all  Giaours,  but  the  subjects  of  the  Ale  man 
Pddishdli  are  by  far  the  most  acceptable. 

Yet  another  Bosnian  capital — the  last  stronghold  of  the 
Bosnian  kings — lies  beyond  Travnik,  and  is  the  goal  of 
every  visitor.     To  travel  through   Bosnia  without  seeing 
Jajce  would  be  unpardonable,  for  it  is  undoubtedly  the 
gem  of  the  country,  and  has  a  beautiful  setting.     Past  a 
gigantic  poplar  hundreds  of  years  old,  beneath  which  a 
famous  dervish  lies  buried,  we  traversed  a  smiling  country 
and  then  climbed  up  a  steep  ascent  to  the  summit  of  the 
pass.     A  pleasing  landscape,  sprinkled  here  and  there  with 
a  Bogomile  tomb,  lies  on  the  other  side,  and  we  are  soon 
at  the  picturesque  little  town  of   Dolnji  Vakuf,   with  its 
ancient  clock-tower  and  old  bridge.       From  this  point 
one  line  goes  off"  to   Bugojno,  from  which  place  a  dili- 
gence runs  through  the  beautiful  valley  of  the  Rama  to 
Jablanica,  while  another  traverses  the  equally  charming 
valley  of  the  Vrbas,  and  has  its  present  terminus  at  Jajce. 
In  old  Hungarian  days  the  Keglevic  family,  to  which  the 
defence  of   Jajce  was  entrusted,  commanded  this  valley 
with  a  castle,  the  ruins  of  which  have  survived  the  Turkish 
conquest.     But  nowadays  this  region  is  of  small  strategic 
importance,  and  since   1895  there  have  been  no  soldiers 
at  Jajce. 

Of  all  the  towns   in  the   Near   East   few  have  such  a 
beautiful  position  as  this  last  capital  of  the  Bosnian  king- 

157 


Travels   and   Politics 


dom,  where  the  hist  native  ruler  of  Bosnia  sought  in  vain 
a  refuge  from  the  invading  Turk  ;  where  for  two  genera- 


JAJCK  :    THE    OLD    BOSXIAX   CAPITAL. 


tions  more  a  Hungarian  garrison  held  out,  as  the  farthest 
outpost  of  Christendom  ;  where,  according  to  the  local 
legend,  the  Evangelist  Luke  is  said  to  have  been  buried 

158 


in   the    Near   East 

beneath  the  Italian  tower  that  bears  his  name  ;  and  where 
perhaps  the  finest  waterfall  in  Europe  crashes  in  thunder 
from  the  rocks  on  which  the  town  is  perched  into  a 
swiftly  running  stream  below.  Round  the  egg-shaped 
castle  hill,  from  which  the  place  derives  its  name  of  the 
"  little  egg,"  rather  than  from  a  fancied  resemblance  to 
the  Castel  dell'  Uovo  at  Naples,  cluster  the  black  and 
white  wooden  houses,  embowered  in  the  foliage  of  the 
walnut-trees,  while  the  slim  Italian  campanile  of  the 
ruined  church  looks  as  if  it  were  out  of  place  in  so 
Oriental  a  setting.  Down  in  the  bazar,  outside  the  old 
gate,  the  Bosnian  peasants,  in  their  white  clothes  with  red 
turbans  wound  round  their  heads,  are  chaffering  over  the 
wares.  Stalwart  Dalmatians,  in  sheepskins  and  fragmen- 
tary scarlet  caps,  are  buying  whetstones  for  their  scythes, 
and  the  Catholic  women  here,  as  at  Travnik,  with  their 
hands  and  arms  tattooed,  are  chattering  in  the  old  gate- 
way over  tlieir  children's  ailments  or  their  new  aprons. 
These  striped  aprons,  made  of  wool,  and  almost  square, 
distinguish  the  women  of  Jajce  from  those  of  the  rest  of 
Bosnia.  Here  the  Catholics  and  the  Moslems  are  in 
about  equal  proportions,  and,  as  is  usually  the  case  in 
Bosnia,  these  two  confessions  get  on  much  better  together 
than  the  Mohammedans  and  the  Orthodox.  Even  before 
the  Austrians  came  the  Mussulmans  of  Jajce  used  to  send 
their  children  to  learn  their  letters  in  the  Franciscan 
school,  and  such  is  the  influence  of  the  Franciscan 
monks,  who  have  played  an  important  part  in  the  history 
of  the  country,  that  we  saw  one  Sunday  a  peasant  wom.an 
crawling  on  her  knees  round  the  church,  followed  by  a 
boy,  either  in  fulfilment  of  some  vow  or  as  a  penance  for 
some  misdeed  that  they  had  committed.  We  saw,  too,  a 
girl  kneeling  durmg  the  whole  service  outside  the  door, 
and  learnt  that  this  was  a  common  punishment  for 
offences  against  morality.     Within  the  church  scores  of 

159 


Travels  and   Politics 

men  were  kneeling,  with  their  quaint  pigtails  hanging 
down  from  their  close-shaven  heads,  as  is  the  fashion  in 
many  parts  of  this  country.  And,  grim  relic  of  the  past, 
beneath  a  glass  case  at  the  side  of  the  building  reposed 
the  skeleton  of  the  last  Bosnian  King,  Stephen  Tomasevic, 
the  skull  severed  from  the  neck,  just  as  it  was  cut  off  by 
the  treacherous  Sultan's  orders  over  four  centuries  ago. 
The  King  had  relied  upon  the  pardon  offered  to  him,  and 
had  given  himself  up  to  Mohammed  II.'s  lieutenant,  who 
brought  him  as  his  prisoner  to  the  Sultan  at  Jajce— the 


PEXAXCE   AT  JAJCE. 
[From  a  Pholo.  by  Miss  Chadivtck.) 

same  place  whence,  a  little  earlier,  he  had  hurled  defiance 
at  his  conqueror.  But  the  captive  King  was  an  encum- 
brance to  the  victor.  A  legal  excuse  was  speedily 
invented  for  an  act  of  treachery  which  justice  brands  as 
inexcusable.  A  learned  Persian  pronounced  the  pardon 
to  be  invalid  because  it  had  been  granted  without  the 
previous  consent  of  the  Sultan.  Mohammed  thereupon 
summoned  Tomasevic  to  his  presence  on  the  spot  still 
called  the  **  Emperor's  meadow."     The  captive  came,  and 

1.60 


in   the   Near   East 

as  he  approached  within  reach  the  hthe  Persian  drew  his 
sword  and,  with  a  spring  in  the  air,  cut  off  the  head  of 
the  last  Bosnian  King.  According  to  another  account 
Tomasevic  was  first  flayed  ahve.  By  the  Sultan's  com- 
mand the  fetva,  in  which  the  Persian  had  composed  the 
captive  monarch's  sentence,  was  carved  on  the  gate  of 
Jajce,  where  as  late  as  the  middle  of  the  present  century 
could  be  read  the  words  :  "  The  true  believer  will  not 
allow  a  snake  to  bite  him  twice  from  the  same  hole." 
The  body  of  Tomasevic  was  buried,  by  order  of  the 
Sultan,  at  a  spot  only  just  visible  from  the  citadel  of 
Jajce.  Curiously  enough,  just  ten  years  ago  Dr.  Tru- 
helka,  the  distinguished  archaeologist  from  Sarajevo, 
discovered  on  the  right  bank  of  the  river  Vrbas  the 
skeleton  of  the  King  just  at  the  spot  where  tradition 
described  it  to  have  been  buried.  The  skull  was  severed 
from  the  trunk,  and  two  small  silver  Hungarian  coins, 
known  to  have  been  current  in  Bosnia  in  the  fifteenth 
century,  lay  on  the  breast-bones.  Since  that  date  it  has 
found  a  resting-place  in  the  Franciscan  church. 

Up  on  the  castle  hill  another  famous  Lord  of  Jajce, 
Hrvoje,  the  "  kingmaker "  of  these  parts  in  the  pre- 
Turkish  times,  the  "  most  respected  man  between  the 
Save  and  the  Adriatic,  the  pillar  of  two  kings  and  king- 
doms," had  built  a  mausoleum  for  himself  in  the  famous 
catacombs  which  are  one  of  the  sights  of  the  Bosnian 
royal  burgh.  What  Warwick,  "the  kingmaker,"  was  in 
the  history  of  England  that  was  Hrvoje  in  the  annals  of 
mediaeval  Bosnia.  An  ancient  document  has  preserved 
the  features  of  this  remarkable  man,  whose  gruff  voice 
and  rough  manners  so  disgusted  the  polite  nobles  of  the 
Hungarian  Court.  By  the  flickering  light  of  a  torch  one 
can  still  descry  his  coat-of-arms — the  helmet,  the  shield 
with  the  lilies,  and  the  sword-wielding  hand.  It  was  here 
that  he  bade  an  Italian  architect  build  him  a  castle,  and 

i6i  M 


Travels  and   Politics 

his  power  extended  to  the  Adriatic  as  far  as  Spalato  and 
Cattaro  ;  while  the  shrewd  Ra^usans  wrote  to  him  that 
"whatsoever  thou  dost  command  in  Bosnia  is  done." 
The  castle  is  now  deserted,  and  the  old  walls  are  aban- 
doned to  the  lizards  and  the  red  admirals  ;  while  from 
the  ramparts  one  looks  down  on  the  trim  school  house 
where  the  boys  of  all  creeds  alike  now  meet  for  their 
lessons.  From  one  of  those  towers  a  Magyar  and  a  Turk 
fell  into  the  abyss  below  in  the  struggle  for  victory  during 
one  of  Jajce's  many  sieges.  On  yonder  greensward 
down  bv  the  waters  of  the  Vrbas  once  danced  the 
maidens  of  Jajce  on  a  moonlight  night  to  draw  away 
the  attention  of  the  besieging  Ottoman  army  from  the 
tactics  of  the  crafty  defenders.  Here  in  the  meadows 
above  the  falls  are  those  inobilibiis  poiuaria  vivis  of  which 
Horace  sang  at  Tivoli.  Swiftly  rushing  in  a  series  of 
miniature  rapids,  under  a  rambling  wooden  bridge,  in 
and  out  of  green  islets  of  vegetation,  the  green  waters  of 
the  Pliva  leap  suddenly  a  waving  mass  into  the  yellow 
waters  of  the  Vrbas,  which  flow  through  a  deep  gorge  a 
hundred  feet  below.  A  huge  rock,  which  was  at  some 
time  hurled  down  by  the  force  of  the  water,  is  covered 
with  the  spray,  which  rises  and  extends  as  far  as  the  town- 
park  on  the  other  side  of  the  Vrbas.  Even  the  hideous 
iron  edifice  which  has  been  erected,  most  inappropriately, 
as  a  memorial  of  that  most  artistic  of  princes,  the  late 
Archduke  Rudolph,  cannot  spoil  the  natural  magnificence 
of  this  spectacle.  Nor,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  will  the  electric 
works,  which  are  intended  to  utilise  to  some  extent  the 
water-power  of  the  Bosnian  Niagara,  detract  from  the 
charms  of  this  beautiful  fall.  Any  damage  done  to  Jajce 
would  be  irreparable,  and  the  Government  has  shown  so 
much  sense  in  preserving  the  natural  beauties  of  the 
country  that  it  would  hardly  permit  such  an  act  of 
vandalism. 

162 


in   the   Near   East 

Not  far  away  are  the  beautiful  lakes  of  the  Pliva, 
between  which  the  decisive  battle  between  the  natives 
and  the  army  of  Occupation  took  place.  The  green 
cones  of  the  mountains — for  here  as  everywhere  the 
Balkans  are  conical  in  shape — reflect  themselves  in 
the  water,  and  all  is  still  and  peaceful  save  for  an 
occasional  and  very  primitive  boat.  Beyond,  in  the 
village  of  Jezero,  or  "the  lake,"  the  Mussulmans  are 
sitting  over  their  thirtieth  cup  of  coffee,  smoking  their 
cigarettes  until  such  time  as  the  iiiiiezziii  shall  next  call 
them  to  their  devotions  from  his  simple  wooden  minaret. 
They  are  talking  of  the  Bosnian  pilgrims  gone  to  Mecca, 
of  the  horse-races  just  over  at  llidze,  and  of  the  late 
skirmish  on  the  Turco-Montenegrin  frontier.  Here 
and  there  an  Austrian  official  or  a  "  European  "  visitor 
enters  the  tourist-house,  which  is  pleasantly  situated  in 
a  garden  on  the  bank  of  the  stream,  and  orders  a  dish  of 
the  trout  for  which  Jezero  is  so  famous.  An  Englishman 
once  talked  of  fixing  his  abode  here,  and  a  fisherman  or 
an  artist  would  find  it  a  pleasant  residence.  But  as  soon 
as  the  electric  tramway  is  made  from  Banjaluka  to  Jajce 
this  charming  district  will  be  overrun  with  tourists.  The 
Romans,  who  considered  communication  between  the 
coast  and  Banjaluka  very  important,  made  one  of  their 
three  great  roads  in  this  country  to  pass  through  Jezero  ; 
but  until  three  years  ago  there  was  no  direct  communica- 
tion with  Banjaluka,  and  such  as  there  was  took  fourteen 
hours.  The  highway  which  now  traverses  the  magnificent 
defile  of  the  Vrbas  between  Jajce  and  Banjaluka  has  been 
justly  called  the  "Via  Mala"  of  Bosnia.  Following  the 
course  of  the  Vrbas,  even  in  places  where  there  is  barely 
room  for  aught  else  than  the  river  between  the  cliffs  on 
either  bank,  sometimes  penetrating  a  tunnel  hewn  in  the 
solid  rock,  sometimes  covered  by  some  projecting  mass 
of  stone,  which  serves  as  a  natural  shelter  from  the  rain 

163 


Travels  and   Politics 

or  snow,  the  road  pursues  its  course  of  forty-five  miles. 
After  stopping  for  a  nionient  to  take  a  last  look  at  Jajce 
we  drove  on  past  a  tiny  Franciscan  church,  which  the 
local  legend  believes  to  have  been  transferred  thither  in 
the  night  from  the  other  side  of  the  valley,  and  which 
every  24th  of  June  welcomes  a  crowd  of  pilgrims  of  more 
sects  than  one.  Tunnel  after  tunnel  follow'S,  and  now 
and  again  some  foaming  mountain  torrent  joins  the 
stream  and  gives  us  a  glimpse  of  some  unexplored  side 
valley,  where  even  the  sure  foot  of  the  chamois  hunter 
would  find  no  path.  Once,  when  travelling  along  this 
road  with  the  landlord  of  the  flourishing  hotel  at  Jajce,  I 
found  him  ecstatic  over  the  possibilities  of  sport  in  these 
regions.  He  pointed  with  a  wave  of  his  hand  in  one 
direction,  and  explained  that  there  was  nothing  but 
chamois- — allcs  hiiiicr  Gciiiscii  !  Then  he  indicated 
another  wood-covei'ed  hill,  and  informed  me  that  it 
was  swarming  with  bears  alone— «//t'5  /;///-  Bd'rcii.  At 
the  halfway  house  at  Bocae,  where  a  fountain,  in- 
scribed "  T';y/o  Vilina  :  1894,"  testifies  to  the  visit  of 
Madame  von  Kallay  in  that  year,  we  had  time  to  climb 
up  to  the  ruins  of  the  old  castle,  which  commands  a 
superb  view  of  the  valley  on  both  sides.  But  the 
finest  scenery  of  this  drive  was  yet  to  come.  For 
between  Bocae  and  Banjaluka  the  road  enters  a  very 
narrow  defile,  the  approach  to  which  was  guarded  in 
olden  times  by  another  castle,  the  ruins  of  which  are 
still  standing,  said  to  have  been  inhabited  by  the  great 
Hrvoje  himself.  This  defile  is  nearly  two  miles  long, 
and  the  road  has  been  blasted  through  the  perpendicular 
rock  on  the  river's  edge.  When  one  emerges  from  it 
one  finds  oneself  out  in  a  level  country,  which  lasts 
all  the  way  to  Banjaluka.  But  we  had  other  attractions 
besides  that  of  the  scenery  on  our  journey.  We  met 
crowds  of  peasants  returning  from  the  Whitsuntide  fair 

164 


in   the   Near   East 

at  Banjaluka  in  the  peculiar  costume  of  the  district — the 
women  wearing  many  coins  and  richly  embroidered 
jackets,  the  men  clad  in  turbans  and  sheepskin  coats, 
worn  with  the  fleece  inwards,  and  adorned  outside  with 
tin  spangles  arranged  in  elaborate  patterns.  This  work 
on  leather,  used  also  for  belts,  saddles,  &c.,  is  a  speciality 
of  Banjaluka.  Next  morning  we  strolled  through  the 
fair :  a  very  busy  scene,  where  there  was  a  great  variety 
of  costume,  some  of  the  women's  dresses  being  particu- 
larly gorgeous.  But  in  spite  of  the  general  merrymaking 
the  salesmen  were  very  stolid,  making  no  attempt  to  puft" 
their  wares  or  induce  customers  to  buy. 

Banjaluka  is  one  of  the  three  most  important  towns  in 
the  occupied  territory,  and  even  before  the  Occupation 
had  acquired  a  considerable  importance  as  the  terminus 
of  the  one  railway  which  then  connected  Bosnia  with 
''  Europe."  Its  name,  "  The  baths  of  St,  Luke,"  point  to 
an  early,  if  legendary,  origin,  of  which  we  have  already 
had  an  example  in  the  tower  of  St.  Luke  at  Jajce.  Its 
proximity  to  the  Croatian  frontier  made  it  an  important 
strategic  point  for  the  Turks.  Again  and  again  it  wit- 
nessed combats  between  the  two  armies,  and  earlier  in 
the  present  century  the  "  Dragon  of  Bosnia,"  one  of  the 
most  picturesque  heroes  of  the  country,  unfurled  here  the 
green  flag  of  the  Prophet  against  the  Sultan  and  his 
officials.  To-day  Banjaluka  has  been  greatly  Euro- 
peanised,  although  it  still  preserves  the  wide,  straggling 
street,  the  mosques,  and  the  bazar  of  an  Eastern  town. 
Space  here  counts  for  nothing  :  the  hotel  covers  an  acre 
or  so  of  ground,  and  the  street  seems  as  if  it  would  never 
end.  To  the  artist  Banjaluka  is  chiefly  interesting 
because  of  the  beautiful  minaret,  certainly  the  finest  in 
the  country,  which  adorns  the  Ferhadija  Mosque,  so 
called  from  the  Turkish  Governor,  Eerhad  Pasha,  who 
built  it  out  of  the  ransom  which  he  had  exacted  for  a 

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Travels  and  Politics  in  the  Near  East 

distinguished  Austrian  captive.  At  the  picturesque 
suburb  of  Gornji  Seher,  "the  upper  village,"  the  Mussul- 
man may  be  seen  at  his  ease,  drinking  his  coffee  at  the 
roadside  cafes,  or  going  to  the  baths  where  once  the 
Romans  discovered  the  hot  springs.  On  the  other  side 
of  the  town  the  Trappist  monastery  affords  a  very 
different  aspect,  and  the  cheese  which  the  worthy  monks 
produce  is  well  known  in  every  part  of  Bosnia.  From 
Banjaluka  to  the  Croatian  frontier  by  railway — the  only 
normal  gauge  line  in  the  whole  country — the  distance  is 
only  sixty-nine  miles.  But,  although  1  have  once  followed 
this  route,  I  found  it  much  less  interesting  than  the 
journey  across  the  hills  and  down  to  the  valley  of  the 
Bosna.  The  north-west  corner  of  Bosnia  is,  indeed,  rich 
in  pasture,  and  is  well  watered  by  the  Sana  and  the  Una, 
so  that  the  people  are  in  many  respects  better  off  here 
than  in  other  parts  of  the  country.  As  we  passed  along 
we  traversed  fields  of  kukitvuc,  or  maize,  one  of  the  staple 
products  of  Bosnia  and  Servia,  and  here  and  there  saw  a 
fine-looking  beg  riding  a  well-groomed  steed.  One  place 
on  the  route,  called  Prjedor,  will  doubtless  one  day 
become  a  convenient  centre  for  the  farm  products  of  this 
district,  while  another  town,  Novi,  is  likely  before  long 
to  be  an  important  railway  junction,  just  as  in  the  last 
century  it  was  a  coveted  military  position  by  reason  of 
its  situation  at  the  meeting-place  of  the  two  rivers  Sana 
and  Una.  From  this  point  onward  the  latter  river  forms 
the  boundary  between  Bosnia  and  Croatia,  and  when  we 
had  crossed  it  we  saw  the  last  minaret  on  the  Bosnian 
bank  rising  from  out  of  the  picturesque  town  of  Kostaj- 
nica,  half  of  which  is  in  Croatia  and  half  in  the  occupied 
territory.  In  olden  days  many  a  conflict  took  place  here 
on  the  "  military  frontier "  between  the  Austrians  and 
the  Turks.  But  Croatia  and  Bosnia  are  almost  merged 
now,  and,  except  for  the  lack  of  the  Mussulman  element, 

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one  might  almost  imagine  oneself  back  in  Bosnia  for 
some  distance  further.  Were  it  not  that  the  Croats  wear 
hats,  their  costume  is  not  greatly  different  from  that  of  the 
Christian  Bosniaks,  while  their  language  is  practically  the 
same.  But  at  Agram  we  are  back  in  the  dull  West, 
amidst  all  the  advantages  of  European  civilisation,  while 
the  presence  of  Bishop  Strossmayer  at  the  palace  on  his 
way  to  a  watering-place  alone  reminds  us  of  the  Eastern 
question  now  behind  us,  in  which  he  has  been  a  con- 
siderable factor. 

To  reach  the  Bosna  valley  from  Banjaluka  is  somewhat 
dit^cult  without  going  back  upon  one's  tracks,  for  there  is 
no  direct  line  joining  these  two  parallels.  But  we  dis- 
covered that  we  could  drive  to  a  place  called  Pribinic, 
forty-five  miles  distant,  whence  we  could  be  conveyed 
along  a  private  railway  belonging  to  a  wood  company 
down  to  Usora  on  the  main  line.  We  could  get  hardly 
any  information  about  the  route,  which  no  one  seemed 
ever  to  have  travelled  ;  but,  armed  with  a  letter  of  intro- 
duction to  the  manager  of  the  wood  company,  we  set  out 
on  what  seemed  to  be  a  tour  of  discovery.  We  drove 
through  the  finely  wooded  valley  of  the  Vrbanja  to  a 
small  place  enjoying  the  grandiloquent  name  of  Varos,  or 
"town,"  and  stopped  for  lunch  at  a  very  picturesque 
village  known  as  "  Catholic  Kotor."  Here  to  our 
surprise  we  found  an  excellent  inn  kept  by  an  Austrian, 
who  was  absolutely  amazed  at  the  idea  of  any  one  pre- 
ferring to  visit  his  village  instead  of  going  to  see  the 
Buda-Pesth  Exhibition.  Although  visitors  are  scarce, 
the  inhabitants,  in  true  Slav  fashion,  paid  absolutely  no 
attention  to  us,  but  were  all  engaged  in  endeavouring 
to  catch  fish  with  huge  nets.  No  power  on  earth  could 
persuade  Misko,  our  driver,  to  spend  less  than  two  and  a 
quarter  hours  at  this  place,  although  we  represented  to 
him  that  we  wished  to  arrive  at  our  destination  before 

1 68 


in   the   Near   East 

dark,  nor  when  we  had  started  could  we  induce  him  to 
drive  his  horses  at  anything  much  beyond  a  walk,  although 
the  road  was  excellent  during  the  first  part  of  the  journey. 
In  the  glades  of  this  woodland  country  the  pigs  were 
feeding  in  herds  with  the  sheep  just  as  I  have  seen  them 
in  Servia.  Then  a  dense  beech  forest,  which  extended 
for  several  miles,  shut  out  all  the  view.  I  have  rarely  seen 
stems  of  such  huge  circumference,  which  go  straight  up, 
often  without  a  branch,  to  an  immense  height.  Down 
below  we  could  hear  the  Vrbanja  roaring  in  its  bed,  but 
could  not  see  it.  Here  and  there  a  kola,  the  local  waggon 
of  great  length  and  without  springs  of  any  kind,  which  is 
sometimes  offered  to  you  as  an  alternative  to  the  carriage 
of  civilisation,  passed  us  on  the  way.  After  passing  the 
summit  the  road  soon  became  frightfully  bad  ;  for  it  had 
been  raining  hard,  and  the  heavy  kolas,  laden  with  wood, 
had  worn  huge  ruts  in  the  roadway.  To  add  to  our 
difficulties  darkness  came  on,  and  as  our  carriage  had  no 
lights,  at  last  we  stuck  on  a  huge  stone  in  a  rut,  and  it 
was  long  before  the  driver  could  remove  it.  By  way  of 
further  impeding  our  progress  he  insisted  on  using  his 
brake  all  the  way,  remaining  absolutely  deaf  to  our 
remonstrances.  At  last  we  got  out  and  walked  at  im- 
minent risk  of  twisting  our  ankles,  for  we  could  not  see 
six  inches  before  us,  and  the  ruts  were  vast.  Through 
the  dark  wood  the  fires  of  the  wood-cutters  gleamed 
picturesquely,  while  their  weirdly  clad  figures  completed 
the  scene.  We  stumbled  on  as  best  we  could,  leaving  our 
carriage  to  creak  and  groan  behind  us,  and  at  last  reached 
a  gendarme's  post.  Then  the  moon  rose  and  the  road 
became  better,  so  that  after  a  drive  of  twelve  hours,  which 
ought  to  have  been  seven,  we  arrived  as  Pribinic  at  ten 
o'clock.  On  entering  the  first  house  I  found  Herr 
Weichsel,  the  manager  of  the  wood  business,  enjoying 
his  evening  pipe  with  a  number  of  other  Austrians.     The 

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only  bedroom  in  tlic  inn  was  full,  but  our  friend  at  once 
got  us  a  clean  and  excellent  bedroom  in  an  adjoining 
house.  Next  morning  we  discovered  that  Pribinic  con- 
sisted of  a  few  houses,  all  made  of  wood,  and  was  the 
centre  of  the  trade  in  wood,  which  is  first  sawn  into 
small  pieces,  and  then  brought  down  from  the  forests  in 
kolas  or  on  the  backs  of  ponies.  We  had  been  some- 
what surprised  on  the  previous  evening  at  being  asked 
by  which  train  we  would  prefer  to  travel,  but  we 
found  that  the  wood  trade  is  so  extensive  that  several 
trains  a  day  are  required  to  convey  the  wood  down  to 
the  main  line.  It  is  said  that  this  company  has  the 
largest  works  of  the  kind  in  Europe  ;  for,  in  addition  to 
the  trade  in  timber,  it  distils  alcohol  and  other  products 
from  the  wood — a  process  which  greatlv  interested  the 
Austrian  Emperor  v.'hen  he  visited  the  Bosnian  pavilion 
in  Vienna.  We  had  expected  to  travel  with  the  timber, 
but  found  that  a  so-called  Salomvagc'ii,  a  comfortable 
carriage  with  a  stuffed  seat  all  round,  like  the  second- 
class  compartment  on  a  Greek  railway,  had  been  pro- 
vided for  our  accommodation  and  tacked  on  to  the  end 
of  a  long  wood  train.  In  this  fashion  we  made  a  trium- 
phant entrance  into  Usora,  twenty-five  miles  distant,  after 
a  most  comfortable  journey  of  three  hours  along  the 
river  of  that  name.  Anv  natives  who  desire  to  travel — 
and  there  are  six  intermediate  stations  where  they  can  be 
loaded  on  with  the  wood — are  stowed  away  in  an  open 
truck  or  else  ride,  as  we  saw  one  woman  and  a  fowl 
doing,  on  the  step.  As  there  is  no  regular  passenger 
traffic,  and  persons  can  only  use  the  line  by  permission, 
the  money  which  we  tendered  for  our  fares  was  refused. 

Usora,  although  it  gave  its  name  to  an  important  mili- 
tary district,  or  Baiiat,  in  the  old  history  of  Bosnia,  is  now 
only  interesting  on  account  of  the  Government  sugar  fac- 
toi'y,  while  Doboj,  close  to  it,  is  a  much  more  picturesque 

170 


in   the   Near   East 

place.     From  the  old  ruined  castle  of  Doboj,  which  was 
captured  by  Prince  Eugen  on  his  memorable  march  to 
Sarajevo,  one  has  an  admirable  view  of  the  battlefields  of 
1878  and  of  the  Bosna  and  Spreca  valleys,  through  the 
latter  of  which  a  branch  line  runs  to  the  manufacturing 
town  of  Dolnja  Tuzla,  and  the  salt  works  of  Siminhan. 
But  from  every  point  of  view  the  most  interesting  place 
in  this  part  of  the  country  is  the  little  town  of  Maglaj, 
on  the  right  bank  of  the  Bosna,  rather  less  than  an  hour 
from  Doboj.     jMaglaj,  with  its  quaint  wooden  bridge,  its 
black  and  white  wooden  houses,  and  its  disused  fortress, 
seems  to-day  the  very  picture  of  peace.     But  it  was  here 
that  the  blackest  act  of  treachery  during  the  whole  cam- 
paign of  twenty  years  ago  was  perpetrated.     I  have  heard 
the  story  of  the  massacre  of  Maglaj  told  many  times,  so 
great  is  the  impression  which  it  has  made.     On  the  3rd 
of  August,   1878,  this  horrible  event  occurred.     A  body 
of  hussars  arrived  at  IVIaglaj,  and  were  received  by  the 
fanatical  Mussulmans  of  the  place  with  the  utmost  defer- 
ence, the  head  man  of  the  place  even  handing  over,  as  a 
token  of  submission,  the  keys  of  the  fortress.    Trusting  in 
the  apparent  friendliness  of  the  natives,  the  hussars  rode 
on  to  Zepce,  about  twenty-two  miles  farther,  to  look  for 
forage,   intending  to  return   as  soon  as  their  quest  was 
completed.      Meanwhile  the    Maglaj   Mussulmans  armed 
themselves  to  the  teeth  and  lay  in  ambush  on  the  left 
bank  of  the  river  in  some  Iniiis,  between  which  and  the 
stream  the  returning  hussars  were  bound  to  pass.     Un- 
suspicious of  their  doom  the  cavalry  returned,  but  when 
they  had  reached  the  fatal  spot    the  people   fired  upon 
them  and  killed  them  almost  to  a  man.     I  have  heard  two 
stories,  both  from  Austrian  officers,  which  give  different 
accounts  of  the  sequel.     According  to  one,  a  laconic  tele- 
gram arrived  at  the  Austrian  headci[uarters  from  Vienna 
with  the  words,  "  Burn   down  Maglaj  ;   level  it  with  the 

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ground."  Accordinif  to  tlie  other  version,  orders  were 
given  to  abstain  from  indiscriminate  punishment.  So  far 
was  this  carried  out  that  one  sergeant,  who  cut  off  a 
child's  arm,  was,  on  the  complaint  of  the  mother,  at  once 
shot  by  order  of  the  commanding  officer,  as  an  example 
of  that  justice  which  General  von  Filipovic  had  promised 
in  the  name  of  the  Emperor-King  a  few  days  before. 
The  boy  was  still  living  in  1884,  and  for  all  I  know  may 
be  still.  No  one  who  visits  Maglaj  now  can  fail  to  be 
struck  by  the  change  in  the  little  place.  A  monument 
has  been  erected  to  the  hussars,  and  we  saw  their  graves, 
overgrown  with  vegetation,  in  a  peaceful  little  cemetery. 
Close  by  the  cemetery  we  were  invited  to  witness  a  game 
of  tennis  on  a  cinder  court  just  outside  the  new  barracks. 
It  is  not  every  day  that  you  can  see  a  real  live  Bosnian 
tf^if  playing  tennis  ;  the  popular  conception  of  a  Mussulman 
is  that  of  a  lethargic  person  who  considers  it  beneath  his 
dignity  to  take  violent  exercise  of  any  sort,  and  sits  all 
the  afternoon  contentedly  sipping  his  coffee  and  smoking 
his  pipe  in  mute  amazement  at  the  tremendous  energy  of 
the  Franks.  But  your  Bosnian  beg  differs  in  this  respect, 
as  in  many  others,  from  the  Turkish  landed  proprietor, 
to  whom  he  corresponds  in  point  of  position,  and  among 
Bosnian  begs  those  of  Maglaj  are  among  the  most 
advanced  in  their  ideas.  *' FortscJirittlcr" — such  was  the 
commentary  with  which  a  little  Austrian  lieutenant 
introduced  Rifat  Beg  and  his  brother,  the  Mayor  of 
Maglaj.  The  little  lieutenant,  Mali,  as  the  natives  were 
wont  to  call  him,  had  a  way  of  patting  the  tall,  strapping 
beg  on  the  back  which  caused  that  worthy  individual 
and  the  rest  of  the  company  unbounded  amusement,  and 
as  his  knowledge  of  the  vernacular  was  about  equal  to 
the  beg's  very  slender  acquaintance  with  German,  the 
partnership  between  them  was  conducted  on  the 
quaintest  methods.     To  make  the  jargon  of  tongues  still 

172 


in   the   Near   East 

more  confused,  the  scoring  was  in  Englisli,  and  it  was 
comical  to  hear  the  beg  and  his  diminutive  companion  in 
arms  shouting  out  "fifteen,"  "  deuce,"  "out,"  "net-ball," 
"  thirty-forty,"  and  the  rest  of  it  in  the  strangest  of 
accents.  More  remarkable  still,  one  of  the  players  on 
the  other  side  was  a  typical  Englishman,  to  judge  from 
his  gait  and  figure,  who  yet  could  speak  hardly  a  word 
of  our  tongue,  which  he  had  not  heard  for  fifteen  years. 
The  son  of  an  English  father  and  a  Hungarian  mother, 
he  had  entered  the  Civil  Service  of  the  Monarchy  and  was 
now  Bczirksvorsielicr  at  this  little  Bosnian  town.  He  told 
me  in  one  of  the  seven  languages  which  he  knew  that  he 
was  trying  to  rub  up  his  long-lost  English  by  means  of 
Cosiiwpolis,  which  he  had  ordered  for  the  purpose  from 
the  bookseller  at  Sarajevo.  Rifat  Beg  soon  showed  that 
he  was  the  best  player  on  the  ground.  As  he  warmed  to 
his  work,  he  actually  threw  aside  his  fez  and  played  bare- 
headed— a  thing  unknown  in  most  Oiiental  lands — and 
his  service  was  terrific.  Every  now  and  then,  as  a  proof 
of  his  "advanced"  ideas,  he  took  a  drink  of  fresh 
Sarajevo  beer.  Meanwhile  the  privates  stood  behind  the 
court,  two  at  each  end,  and  fielded  the  balls. 

Our  friend  the  beg,  having  polished  off  his  adversaries 
at  tennis,  proceeded  to  hold  forth  on  the  other  great 
pastime  of  which  Maglaj — and  Maglaj  alone  of  all 
Bosnian  towns — can  boast.  By  a  curious  accident  this 
is  the  only  place  in  the  country  where  the  ancient  sport 
of  hawking  still  survives.  August  is  the  month  when  the 
begs  take  forth  their  falcons  in  quest  of  game,  and  Rifat 
told  us  that  he  had  a  lot  of  these  beautiful  little  birds,  all 
females,  for  the  males  are  too  fierce  and  tear  the  quarrv. 
He  first  caught  the  young  birds  in  nets  by  means  of  a 
white  pigeon  or  a  magpie  as  decoy.  He  then  trained 
them  up  in  the  way  they  should  go,  fastening  a  piece  of 
leather  on  to  the  young  birds'  feet,  accustoming  them  to 

^73 


Travels  and  Politics  in  the  Near  East 

sit  upon  his  fist,  putting  bells  upon  their  legs,  and  then 
when  they  were  quite  tame  allowing  them  to  practise 
upon  sparrows.  Then  at  last  the  real  business  begins, 
and  the  falcons  are  taken  out  to  catch  bigger  game. 
They  are  not  hooded,  as  was  the  custom  in  England 
in  former  days,  but  are  given  full  liberty  as  soon  as 
they  have  been  taught.  When  once  they  have  seized 
their  prev,  usually  a  quail,  the  falconer  runs  up,  covers 
the  quail's  body  with  his  hand,  and  deftly  cuts  off  the 
head,  which  the  falcon  carries  off,  leaving  the  body  in  its 
master's  possession.  In  the  early  years  of  the  Occupation 
there  were  also  considerable  numbers  of  wolves  on  the  hill 
just  above  Maglaj,  but  the  soldiers  shot  them  off  because 
they  killed  the  peasants'  sheep,  and  as  a  price  is  set  upon 
their  heads  their  number  has  greatly  decreased. 

On  arriving  at  the  Maglaj  railway  station  we  were 
much  entertained  by  the  apparition  of  the  town  jester 
on  the  platform.  This  fellow — a  good-for-nothing,  good- 
humoured  Bosniak,  who  spends  most  of  his  time  in 
loitering  about  the  station  and  doling  out  water  to  the 
fourth-class  passengers — had  lately  been  presented  by  the 
waggish  mayor  wnth  a  parti-coloured  suit,  half  red,  half 
yellow,  with  a  huge  pink  patch  at  the  seat  of  his  breeches. 
The  object  of  our  excursion  was  Vranduk,  a  small  village 
situated  above  a  bend  of  the  Bosna,  which  is  one  of  the 
most  ciunous  spots  in  the  whole  country.  The  station  is 
on  the  right  bank  of  the  river,  the  village  is  on  the  left, 
and  the  only  means  of  reaching  it  is  a  boat  constructed 
out  of  a  hollow  tree.  By  means  of  shouts,  taken  up  by 
some  children  on  the  opposite  bank,  we  succeeded  in 
summoning  the  boatman.  This  worthy  requested  us  to 
sit  down  in  the  bottom  of  this  primitive  boat — there  were 
no  seats — and  skilfully  ferried  us  across  the  swollen 
stream,  which  the  heavy  rains  had  made  as  yellow  as 
the  Tiber.     We  then  scrambled  up  a  narrow  path  to  the 

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Travels   and   Politics 

top  of  the  hill,  on  which  the  wooden  houses  of  Vranduk 
are  clustered  exactly  like  so  many  swallows'  nests.  The 
place  seemed  absolutely  deserted,  for  all  the  men  were 
away  minding  their  herds  on  the  hills,  and  the  few  women 
whom  we  saw  hid  their  faces  and  fled  at  our  approach. 
There  was  no  place  where  we  could  get  food  or  drink, 
and  no  hospitable  Geiularmeriepostcii,  for  that  had  been 
removed  to  the  next  village,  live  miles  away — in  fact  there 
was  not  even  a  Mussulman  cafe  like  that  at  Maglaj,  the 
proprietor  of  which  had  pounded  for  us  the  most  delicious 
coffee  in  the  hollow  of  a  tree,  according  to  the  custom 
common  in  Bosnia.  A  band  of  children,  however,  quickly 
guessed  that  we  wished  to  see  the  sights,  and  one  of  them 
ran  and  fetched  the  key  of  the  old  castle,  a  lovely  old  ruin 
the  inside  of  which  is  now  converted  into  a  garden  full  of 
trees  ;  from  the  old  battlements  we  had  a  commanding 
view  of  the  river  on  either  side.  We  realised  at  once  the 
important  strategical  position  of  Vranduk  in  former  days, 
which  earned  it  its  name  of  "the  gate  of  Bosnia."  The 
road  now  goes  right  underneath  the  castle  by  means  of  a 
tunnel,  which  bears  the  name  of  the  Emperor.  We  could 
find,  however,  no  traces  of  the  well  which  is  said  to  go 
down  to  the  level  of  the  river.  The  inhabitants  seem  to 
live  almost  exclusively  on  Indian  corn,  which  is  stacked 
in  large  wicker  edifices  of  rectangular  shape  fastened 
together  with  pieces  of  wood.  Thanks  to  the  kindness 
of  the  stationmaster,  whose  whole  apartment,  including 
the  chandelier,  bore  evidence  to  his  marvellous  talents  as 
an  artist  in  fretwork,  we  were  enabled  to  refresh  ourselves 
while  he  discoursed  on  the  great  and  unexpected  develop- 
ment of  the  traffic  on  the  line.  We  then  returned  to  Maglaj, 
and  went  back  next  day  to  Doboj.  From  there  to  the 
frontier  at  Brod  there  is  nothing  of  great  interest,  except 
the  beautifully  situated  little  town  of  Dervent.  As  one 
approaches  the  Save  the  country  becomes  flat,  but  still 

176 


in  the  Near  East 

preserves  its  Oriental  character  until  the  river  is  crossed. 
Then  one  feels  oneself  transported  all  of  a  sudden 
into  another  and  a  much  more  commonplace  world. 
Slavonia  has  fine  grassy  plains,  it  is  true,  which  stretch  as 
far  as  the  eye  can  reach  ;  but  there  are  no  more  bright 
costumes  at  the  stations,  where  every  one  goes  about  in 
the  dull,  serious  garments  of  Western  civilisation.  And 
when,  at  the  end  of  this  journey,  I  reached  Belgrade,  I 
found  that  the  Serbs  of  the  Servian  capital  were  far  less 
artistic  than  those  of  the  occupied  territory. 


177  N 


CHAPTER  V 

'TWIXT    AUSTRIAN     AXU   TURK  :     THE     SAXDZAK   OF    XOVI- 

BAZAR 

OF  all  the  arrangements  made  by  the  Berlin  Treaty 
the  most  remarkable  was  that  part  of  the  25th 
article  which  entitled  Austria-Hungary  to  "keep  garrisons 
and  have  roads"  in  the  district,  or  Sandzak,  of  Novi-Bazar. 
This  district  is  situated  between  Bosnia,  Servia,  Monte- 
negro, and  Turkey,  forming,  theoretically  at  any  rate,  a 
part  of  the  Ottoman  Empire,  but  occupied  militarily  at 
three  points  by  Austro-Hungarian  troops.  It  is  therefore, 
perhaps,  the  most  anomalously  governed  part  of  Europe, 
with  the  possible  exception  of  the  present  "  temporary  " 
administration  of  Crete,  The  best  means  of  reaching  it 
is  from  Sarajevo,  whence  a  military  post  performs  the 
journey  to  Plevlje,  the  chief  of  the  three  occupied 
towns  of  the  Sandzak,  a  distance  of  ninety-nine  miles, 
in  about  two  days,  while  a  private  carriage  takes  a  little 
longer. 

We  left  Sarajevo  early  in  the  afternoon,  in  one  of 
Sarajcics  vehicles,  and  drove  up  the  defile  of  the 
Miljacka,  past  the  "Goat's  Bridge,"  which  is  one  of  the 
favourite  drives  of  Sarajevo.  In  the  Napoleonic  days 
the  route  between  Salon ica  and  Sarajevo,  by  way  of  the 
Sandzak  of  Novi-Bazar,  was  one  of  the  main  arteries  of 
commerce  ;  for  during  the  Continental  Blockade  pro- 
visions were  carried  this  way  on  the  backs  of  mules. 
Even  to-day  there  is  an  immense  traffic  in  wood  in  carts 

178 


Travels  and  Politics  in  the  Near  East 

drawn  by  bullocks.  The  first  village,  Han  Pale,  contains 
some  pretty  villas  among  its  splendid  beech  woods,  one 
of  them  belonging  to  the  British  Consul-General.  As  we 
drove  along  we  saw  yellowhammers  on  almost  every 
bough,  and  as  it  grew  dark  the  fireflies  fiitted  through  the 
gloaming.  On  a  fountain  at  which  our  two  horses.  Pram 
and  Misko,  wished  to  drink,  the  inscription,  ^' Kako  ti  si?" 
("How  art  thou  ?")  greeted  us,  and  reminded  us  that  it 
is  the  fashion  in  the  vernacular  to  address  everybody  in 
the  second  person  singular,  a  mode  of  address  which  our 
Bosnian  driver  always  used  to  me,  even  when  he  "raised 
me  to  the  peerage"  by  styling  me  "  Herr  Baron."  We 
spent  the  first  night  at  Praca,  a  quiet  little  village  with  a 
very  clean  inn,  which  boasts  of  a  Roman  sarcophagus  in 
the  grounds  of  a  mosque  opposite.  On  the  hill  above 
the  village  we  saw  for  the  first  time  the  initials  of  the 
Austrian  Emperor,  "  F.  J.  I./'  in  large  wooden  letters.  It 
is  a  common  practice  in  this  part  of  the  occupied  terri- 
tory, and  at  the  Austrian  stations  in  the  Sandzak,  to  erect 
these  letters  in  wood,  or  to  mark  them  out  in  stones  on 
the  hillsides,  where  they  are  illuminated  on  his  Majesty's 
birthday  and  other  great  occasions.  After  a  couple  of 
hours'  drive  through  a  magnificent  beech  forest  we 
reached  Han  Bare,  the  summit  of  the  pass,  where  a 
fine  Bogomile  tombstone  was  standing,  according  to  the 
driver  a  hundred  years  old— his  usual  phrase  for  great 
antiquity.  The  most  splendid  view  is  usually  to  be  had 
from  the  next  stopping-place,  Ranjen-Karaula  ("the  watch- 
house  of  the  wounded");  but  it  was  so  misty  that  we 
could  barely  see  the  outlines  of  the  grand  Montenegrin 
mountains,  the  highest  of  which.  Mount  Dormitor,  was 
quite  hidden.  About  midday  we  reached  Gorazda,  a 
little  town  which  lies  in  a  complete  hole,  and  is  very  hot. 
The  blue  Drina  flows  past  it  under  a  new  iron  bridge, 
built,  as  the  inscription  says,  in  1891  ;  in  fact  civilisation 

179 


Travels   and   Politics 

has  made  great  progress  at  this  spot.  There  is  a  very 
good  hotel  here,  in  the  dining-room  of  which  is  a 
thrilHng  picture  of  the  surrender  of  Maglaj,  and  one 
shopkeeper  in  the  bazar  describes  himself  as  "  Civil  iiiul 
Miliidr  Snajder" — a  praiseworthy  attempt  to  spell  the 
German  word  for  tailor  in  the  Croatian  alphabet.  We 
then  climbed  up  through  the  woods,  and  reached,  towards 


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evening,  the  pretty  Alpine  town  of  Cajnica,  situated  on 
the  edge  of  a  deep  ravine,  in  a  beautifully  bracing  atmo- 
sphere. The  Bczirksvoi'stclicr,  Baron  von  Nagy  Barcsa,  a 
Hungarian  ex-hussar  officer,  showed  us  the  sights  of  the 
place.  He  took  us  over  the  new  Servian  church,  which 
is  very  rich,  having  a  capital  of  50,000  gulden  {£^,16']), 
drawn  from  the  pilgrims  who  flock  there  at  the  Festival 

180 


in   the   Near   East 

of  the  Assumption  of  the  Virgin  (August  27th)  and  on 
her  birthday  (September  8th),  called  the  great  and 
the  small  festivals  of  Mary.  So  great  are  the  numbers 
of  the  worshippers  that  a  large  buikhng  has  been  erected 
in  the  courtyard  of  the  church  for  their  reception.  The 
new  church  contains  a  famous  picture  of  the  Virgin  and 
child,  with  John  the  Baptist  in  the  background,  said  to 
be  by  St.  Luke.  The  old  church,  close  to  the  new  one, 
is  very  small,  and  is  now  almost  unused,  though  it  is 
memorable  for  the  girdles  of  the  Servian  women  whose 
husbands  had  been  slain  by  the  Turks,  which  were  hung 
there -as  soon  as  the  slayer  had  been  killed. 

The  Bezirksvorsiehcr  then  took  us  to  the  chief  mosque 
and  to  two  tilrbcli,  in  one  of  which  is  the  tomb  of  the  great 
Bosniak,  Sinan  Pasha,  who  was  a  native  of  this  place. 
Cajnica  is  a  very  good  specimen  of  what  has  been 
accomplished  by  the  officials.  The  opponents  of  the 
Occupation  are  fond  of  saying  that  a  certain  number  of 
places,  on  the  beaten  track,  have  been  worked  up  to  a 
high  pitch  of  civilisation,  in  order  to  impose  upon  the 
visitor.  Russia,  it  may  be  remembered,  initiated  this 
plan,  and  Potemkin  ordered  the  erection  of  model 
villages  on  the  route  by  which  Catharine  II.  was  to 
travel.  But  the  road  from  Sarajevo  to  the  Sandzak  is 
probably  the  least  frequented  by  foreigners  of  any  in  the 
country,  and  no  journalist  had  vieijted  it  since  Herr  von 
Mack,  of  the  KiihilscJic  Zc it  11 110^  two  years  ago,  yet  I  found 
that  in  all  the  places  along  the  route  just  as  great  progress 
had  been  made,  in  comparison  to  their  size,  as  at  the 
more  frequented  spots  to  which  tourist  agencies  take 
their  excursions.  Here  at  Cajnica,  for  example,  the 
Bezirksvorsiehcr  has  laid  out  and  planted,  opposite  his 
office,  a  public  garden,  and  made  a  path  through  the 
woods,  past  the  ice-cold  spring  called  the  Appel-Ouelle. 
In   his  official   capacity    he  has  six  different   authorities 

181 


Travels  and  Politics 

under  him,  and  takes  especial  interest  in  the  building  of 
the  new  and  larger  school  which  is  to  supersede  the 
present  one.  For  in  this  small  town  there  are  already 
a  hundred  children  of  all  confessions  in  the  public 
school,  in  addition  to  those  who  frequent  the  Serb 
educational  establishment.  He  is  beginning  to  find  that 
his  offices  are  too  small  for  his  ever-increasing  work,  for, 
as  he  said,  "  Our  duties  increase,  our  bureaux  remain  the 
same."  He  has  at  his  own  house,  where  I  was  his  guest, 
a  fine  collection  of  Bosnian  embroideries,  some  ancient 
pottery,  and  Roman  remains,  of  which  Bosnia  is  still  full, 
and  a  splendid  bear-skin  as  well  as  a  stuffed  baby  bear. 
His  talents  as  an  organiser  were  put  to  a  severe  test  four 
years  ago,  when  he  provided  food  and  entertainment 
in  the  wilderness  of  Glasinac  for  the  Anthropological 
Congress,  which  numbered  two  of  our  own  countrymen 
among  its  members. 

Leaving  Cajnica  next  morning  we  reached,  after  a  two 
hours'  drive  through  splendid  forests,  the  frontier  between 
Bosnia  and  the  Sandzak,  a  place  called  IMetalka-Sattel, 
ii8  kilometres  (or  about  74  miles)  from  Sarajevo.  As  its 
name  in  German  denotes,  Metalka  -  Sattel  forms  the 
"saddle"  between  the  two  hills  on  either  side  of  it,  one 
of  which  on  the  right  is  crowned  by  the  Austrian,  the 
other  on  the  left  by  the  much  smaller  Turkish,  barracks. 
An  Austrian  toll-bar  crosses  the  road  at  the  frontier,  where 
we  descended  from  our  vehicle  and  went  off  to  lunch  at 
the  Austrian  barracks.  Two  lieutenants,  in  the  temporary 
absence  of  their  captain,  did  the  honours.  These  two 
are  known  among  their  acquaintances  as  der  weitschonste, 
unci  der  ziveitschuiistc,  Lieutenant  von  Metalka,  although 
no  one  has  been  unkind  enough  to  specify  which  is 
which.  The  military  doctor  from  Cajnica,  and  two 
Austrian  ladies  from  Plevlje,  made  up  the  party,  and 
the   view    from    the   arbour   was   very   beautiful.      After 

182 


in   the   Near   East 

lunch  one  of  the  lieutenants  took  us  to  the  house  of  the 
Turkish  Customs  official,  a  very  affable  personage,  with 
whom  the  Austnans  get  on  very  w^ell  and  who,  in  the 
course  of  his  eight  years'  sojourn  at  Metalka,  has  picked 
up  a  considerable  amount  of  German.  Of  course  the 
Turk  insisted  on  giving  us  coffee  and  cognac,  aijd  passed 
our  baggage  without  opening  it  ;  while,  as  a  token  of  the 
excellent  relations  which  exist  between  the  Austrian 
military,  and  the  Turkish  civil,  authorities  at  the  frontier, 
the  lieutenant  and  he  marched  off  arm  in  arm  as  we 
departed. 

But  before  going  any  further,  it  is  desirable  to  state 
the  conditions  under  which  this  remote  district  of 
European  Turkey  has  been  governed  for  the  last  twenty 
years.  The  same  article  of  the  Berlin  Treaty  which 
entrusted  Austria  -  Hungary  with  the  Occupation  of 
Bosnia  and  the  Hercegovina,  gave  her  also  the  right 
of  occupying  military  points  in  the  Sandzak — a  word 
which  means  literally  in  Turkish  "  a  flag,"  but  is  used 
figuratively  by  the  Turks  to  denote  a  district.  "  As  the 
Government  of  Austria-Hungary  does  not  wish  to  burden 
itself  w'ith  the  government  of  the  Sandzak,"  so  runs 
this  article,  "the  Ottoman  administration  shall  continue 
to  act  there  as  before.  None  the  less,  Austria-Hungary 
reserves  to  herself  the  right  of  keeping  garrisons  and 
having  military  and  commercial  roads  throughout  the 
whole  extent  of  that  part  of  the  old  vilayet  of  Bosnia, 
so  as  to  secure  the  new  political  situation  and  the 
freedom  of  the  population."  But,  although  this  arrange- 
ment remains  fully  in  force,  the  present  situation  is 
settled  by  a  Convention,  dated  April  21,  1879,  and 
entitled,  "Convention  entrc  I'AutricJic-Hongric  ct  la  Turquic, 
a  I'cgard  cic  Novi-Bazar."  Article  8  of  this  Convention 
provides  that:  "The  presence  of  the  troops  of  H.M. 
the   Emperor  and    King    in    the    Sandzak,    shall    not    in 

183 


Travels   and   Politics 

any  way  hinder  the  functions  of  the  Turkish  adminis- 
trative, judicial,  or  financial  authorities  of  any  kind, 
which  will  continue  to  act  as  in  the  past  under  the 
exclusive  and  direct  orders  of  the  Sublime  Porte," 
Article  9  provides  that  nowhere  in  the  Sandzak  shall  the 
Porte  place  irregular  troops.  The  most  important  part 
of  the  Convention  is  the  Annexe,  which  runs  as  follows: 
"  It  is  understood  that  in  the  actual  circumstances,  the 
Government  of  Austria-Hungary  has  no  intention  of 
placing  garrisons  except  at  three  points,  situated  on  the 
Lim,  between  the  frontiers  of  Servia  and  Montenegro. 
These  points  shall  be  Priboj,  Priepolje,  and  Bielopolje. 
The  number  of  troops  at  present  destined  for  the  service 
of  these  garrisons  shall  not  exceed  the  number  of  4,000 
to  5,000  men."  The  Annexe  goes  on  to  state  that,  if 
circumstances  should  require  it,  Austria-Hungary  may 
place  troops  at  other  points  of  the  Sandzak,  by  giving 
notice,  according  to  a  form  provided  in  article  7.  The 
only  exception  to  this  is  the  case  in  which  Austria- 
Hungary  should  desire  to  place  troops  "s///'  Ics  points 
dn  Balkan  de  Ragosna."  In  this  case  she  must  make 
a  direct  arrangement  with  the  Porte.  Almost  as  soon  as 
this  Convention  was  signed,  Bielopolje  was  changed  for 
Plevlje,  and  the  Austro-Hungarian  troops  never  went  to 
the  former  place  at  all,  but  came  direct  to  Plevlje  on 
September  10,  1879.  There  are  now  under  2,000 
Austro-Hungarian  troops  in  the  whole  Sandzak,  placed 
at  the  three  above-mentioned  points,  and  at  a  few 
watch-posts  between  them,  e.g.,  Boljanic  and  Gotovusa, 
between  the  frontier  and  Plevlje  ;  Jabuka  between 
Plevlje  and  Priepolje,  and  Uvac  beyond  Priboj.  It 
will  be  observed  that  the  most  important  words  of  the 
Annexe  are  "  actual  "  {"  actnelles"  in  the  original  French), 
and  "at  present"  {"  actnellenient "  in  the  French,  and 
"  I'orldnjig"  in   the  German  version).      Austria-Hungary 

184 


in   the  Near  East 

has  only  one  civil  official  in  the  Sandzak,  who  is  called 
colloquially  Consul,  but  whose  real  title  is  Ciril-coiii- 
iiiissar. 

This  official,  who  has  been  longer  in  the  place  than 
any  one  except  the  Turkish  Pasha,  and  has  therefore 
almost  unique  knowledge  of  its  conditions,  exercises 
considerable  judicial  powers.  He  has  full  jurisdiction 
in  all  civil  cases,  as  he  was  kind  enough  to  inform  me, 
where  both  parties  are  Austro-Hungarian  subjects.  In 
civil  cases,  between  an  Austro-Hungarian  and  a  Turkish 
subject,  the  Turkish  tribunals  have  legal  jurisdiction, 
provided  that  the  Civil-coiiniiissar  is  present  at  the  trial  ; 
but,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  Turkish  subjects  prefer  to  come 
to  the  Austrian  Commissioner.  In  criminal  cases,  where 
both  parties  are  Austro-Hungarian  subjects,  the  Com- 
missioner has  jurisdiction,  if  the  matters  are  of  small 
importance,  such  as  an  insult,  or  a  blow  on  the  ear  ;  but  in 
bigger  criminal  cases  the  Commissioner  draws  up  the  pre- 
liminaries at  Plevlje  and  then  sends  them  to  the  home  of 
the  accused  person,  in  the  Monarchv,  where  they  are  tried 
by  the  local  criminal  court.  Finally,  in  mixed  criminal 
cases  between  a  Turkish  and  an  Austro-Hungarian  subject 
the  same  theory  and  practice  prevail  as  in  mixed  civil 
cases,  i.e.  the  Turkish  Court  has  legal  jurisdiction  ;  but  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  the  parties  usually  prefer  to  go  before  the 
Commissioner.  The  Austrians  have  a  military  post  of 
their  own,  for  which  Bosnian  stamps  are  used.  There  is 
also  an  Austrian  wire,  but  this  is  only  available  for  mili- 
tary men,  and  when  I  wished  to  despatch  a  message  by 
it  I  had  to  write  it  out  beforehand  and  ask  an  officer  to 
send  it  for  me.  There  is,  for  ordinary  purposes,  the 
Turkish  telegraph,  and  parcels  for  Plevlje  have  to  pass 
through  the  Turkish  custom-house  there,  which  is 
managed  on  the  same  happy-go-lucky  principles  as 
everywhere  else  in  Turkey.     Time  is  absolutely  no  con- 

185 


Travels  and  Politics 

sideration,  and  one  day  is  as  good  as  another  to  the 
Turkish  official.  The  Austrian  officers,  however,  who 
enjoy  exceptional  privileges  to  compensate  them  for 
their  exile  in  the  Sandzak,  are  exempt  from  payment 
of  customs  dues,  and  the  Turkish  eight  per  cent  is 
much  less  troublesome  than  the  delay  usually  caused 
by  the  necessity  of  paying  it.  Both  currencies,  Austrian 
and  Turkish,  pass  in  the  Sandzak,  the  medjidieh,  having 
however,  as  in  other  parts  of  Turkey,  a  variable  value  for 
all  non-official  payments.  It  is  worth  twenty-six  piastres 
at  Plevlje  and  twenty-two  at  another  place,  while  for 
official  payments  it  is  taken  at  nineteen  piastres.  The 
piastre  is  reckoned  at  eleven  kreuzers. 

A  glance  at  the  map  will  convince  the  reader  of  the 
importance  of  this  Austrian  outpost  in  the  Balkan  Penin- 
sula, Whether  it  be  considered  as  a  wedge  between 
Servia  and  Montenegro,  or  as  a  stepping-stone  on  the 
way  to  Salonica,  the  Austrian  position  in  the  Sandzak 
possesses  great  strategic  importance.  It  will  be  observed 
that  the  number  of  soldiers  which  the  Monarchy  is 
entitled  to  keep  here,  is  entirely  dependent  upon  the 
circumstances  of  the  moment.  At  the  present  crisis  in 
Balkan  politics,  those  circumstances  are  more  likely  to 
arise  out  of  friction  between  Austria-Hungary  and  Mon- 
tenegro, that  from  any  immediate  desire  to  take  up  the 
policy  of  Count  Beust  and  "  run  down  to  Salonica."  I 
have  discussed  this  point  with  a  great  many  persons, 
Austrians  and  others,  who  are  resident  in  the  Balkan 
Peninsula,  including  inhabitants  of  Salonica.  Of  course 
I  found  among  them  considerable  divergence  of  view  ; 
and  for  my  own  part,  as  I  hope  to  show  in  a  later 
chapter,  1  consider  it  for  the  real  interest  alike  of 
Salonica,  of  Macedonia,  and  of  Western  Europe,  that 
this  route  to  the  Indies  should  be  in  the  hands  of  the 
only  civilised  power  which  is  sufficiently  strong  and  suffi- 

i86 


in  the  Near  East 

ciently  near  to  hold  it.  But  I  have  reason  to  heheve  that 
for  the  present  and  the  immediate  future,  the  Austrian 
Government  will  not  go  beyond  its  present  out-posts  in 
the  Balkan  Peninsula,  as  against  Turkey.  It  has  of 
course,  by  virtue  of  the  Berlin  Treaty,  the  right  of 
going  as  far  as  the  farther  end  of  the  Sandzak,  close 
up  to  the  terminus  of  the  Macedonian  railway  at 
Mitrovica.  If  the  Austro- Russian  agreement,  about 
which  so  much  has  been  written,  be  really  a  fact,  and 
the  two  rival  empires  have  really  agreed  upon  their 
respective  spheres  of  influence  in  the  Balkan  Peninsula, 
Austria  possesses  at  Plevlje  a  starting-point  from  which 
she  can  go  forth  on  her  mission  as  an  Eastern  Empire. 
But  personally  I  must  confess  that  I  have  no  great 
faith  in  the  permanence  of  arrangements  based  upon 
international  agreements.  Supposing,  as  seems  pro- 
bable, that  the  Austro-Russian  agreement  really  exists, 
its  validity  will  no  doubt  continue  just  so  long  as  suits 
the  convenience  of  Russian  policy  in  the  Near  East.  There 
are  Austrian  officials  who  think  that  the  Monarchy  gains 
no  material  advantages  from  this  purely  military  colony  in 
the  Sandzak,  and  who  even  regret  that  their  Government 
has  extended  its  military  power  so  far.  But  the  main 
idea  of  the  military  occupation  in  Novi-Bazar  was  not  so 
much  to  defend  Bosnia  from  the  Turks,  whose  mission 
as  a  conquering  power  seemed  in  1878  to  be,  and  pro- 
bably still  is,  over,  as  to  keep  the  two  Serb  states  of 
Servia  and  Montenegro  apart.  For  these  two  countries 
the  Sandzak  possesses  great  political  and  historical  value. 
Servian  writers  are  fond  of  reminding  us  that  their  remote 
ancestors  inhabited,  not  merely  Servia  and  Montenegro, 
but  Bosnia,  the  Hercegovina,  and  the  Sandzak  as  well. 
It  was  here  too  that  Stephen  Nemanja,  one  of  the  greatest 
names  in  Servian  history,  formed  the  nucleus  of  his 
power;  and  this  district,  which,  in  those  days  included, 

187 


Travels  and  Politics 

under  the  name  of  Rascia,  the  modern  Turkish  vilayet 
of  Kossovo  as  well,  was  alwa3^s  regarded  as  the  appanage 
of  the  Servian  heir-apparent.  It  was  in  the  famous 
monastery  of  Milesovo,  not  far  from  Priepolje,  that  the 
remains  of  S.  Sava,  the  apostle  of  the  Serbs,  were 
deposited.  The  constantly  recurring  idea,  which  this 
summer  has  been  considerably  discussed,  that  in  the 
event  of  a  termination  of  the  reigning  dynasty  in  Servna 
the  two  Serb  states  should  be  united  under  Prince 
Nicholas  of  Montenegro,  is  rendered  absolutely  futile  so 
long  as  the  Austrian  troops  are  in  the  Sandzak.  Had  the 
Treatv  of  San  Stefano  been  carried  out,  in  this  as  in  other 
respects  Montenegro  would  have  gained  and  Austria- 
Hungary  would  have  lost.  But  at  no  other  point  is  the 
famous  definition  of  the  latter  power  as  the  "  Sentinel  of 
the  Balkans "  so  accurate  as  in  the  Sandzak,  which  is 
certainly  the  most  critical  position  in  the  whole  peninsula, 
and  one  of  the  most  beneficial  to  the  preservation  of 
European  peace. 

The  Austrians  themselves  are  under  no  illusions  as  to 
the  feelings  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  Sandzak  towards 
them  ;  the  natives,  mostly  Serbs,  who  have  not  forgotten 
the  Treaty  of  San  Stefano,  are  liable  to  be  moved  by 
the  promptings  of  national  feeling  or  of  nationalist  agita- 
tion against  the  "  European  "  garrison.  When  we  were 
there,  there  was  some  fear  of  disturbances,  and  the 
lieutenants  at  the  isolated  posts  never  went  out  without 
firearms.  Between  the  Turkish  authorities  and  the  Aus- 
trians very  friendly  relations  prevail,  and  this  lack  of 
friction,  just  where  it  might  have  been  anticipated,  is 
largely  due  to  the  tact  and  experience  of  Ferik  Suleiman, 
the  Turkish  Pasha  of  Plevlje,  who  has  held  that  delicate 
position  for  eighteen  years — in  fact  almost  ever  since  the 
Austrians  came.  But  although  there  is  so  little  difficulty 
with    the    Turks,    the    Austrians    believe    that    thev    are 

i88 


in  the  Near  East 

regarded  as  intruders,  whose  benefits  to  the  trade  of 
Plevlje  are  fully  recognised,  but  whose  departure  would 
be  acceptable  to  the  Ottoman  authorities  and  subjects. 
Wherever  the  Turkish  Empire  is  concerned,  anomalies 
seem  to  be  so  inevitable  that  this  particular  anomaly  of 
the  Austrian  garrisons  co-existing  with  a  Turkish  civil 
administration  is  likely  to  continue  until  the  next  great 
liquidation  of  the  Balkan  Peninsula.  It  should  be  added 
that  with  characteristic  ingenuity  the  Turkish  authorities 
have  kept  up  their  dignity  by  creating  a  separate  Sandzak 
of  Plevlje  out  of  the  three  points  occupied  by  the  Aus- 
trians,  and  have  reconstituted  the  rest  into  a  new  and 
smaller  Sandzak  of  Novi-Bazar  which  contains  the  town 
of  that  name.  ''  Europeans,"  however,  still  give  the  latter 
name  to  the  whole  district. 

From  the  frontier  at  Metalka-Sattel  to  Plevlje  is  exactly 
twenty-five  miles,  and  there  is  an  excellent  road  all  the 
way.  One  notices  as  soon  as  one  crosses  the  frontier  that 
one  has  reached  Turkish  territory,  for  the  country  has 
become,  through  the  carelessness  of  the  Turkish  authori- 
ties, bare  and  stony,  though  a  hundred  years  ago  it  is  said 
to  have  been  covered  with  wood.  There  are  small  rocky 
basins  in  the  ground,  just  as  one  sees  in  Montenegro,  and 
here  and  there  an  occasional  hau  is  the  only  sign  of 
human  habitation.  At  the  first  Austrian  post,  called 
Boljanic,  an  ofBcer  at  once  stepped  out  to  meet  us, 
clicked  his  heels  together  and  said  that  lunch  was  ready. 
When  we  told  him  that  we  had  already  lunched,  he 
insisted  on  our  at  least  drinking  the  Samian  wine  which 
is  one  of  the  privileges  enjoyed  in  this  remote  corner  of 
Turkey.  At  first  sight  it  would  be  difficult  to  conceive 
of  anythuig  more  lonely  than  the  position  of  an  officer 
posted  at  a  solitary  hamlet  like  this.  He  is  usually  here 
for  a  year  at  a  time,  and  except  for  the  soldiers  whom  he 
has  under  his  command,  he  has  no  society  on  the  spot. 

189 


Travels  and   Politics 

But  he  has  one  great  mitigation  of  his  ionehness  in  the 
fact  that  there  is  communication  by  telephone  between  all 
these  stations  and  with  Plevlje.  In  this  way  each  officer 
is  able  to  hold  long  conversations  with  his  friends,  of 
which  we  had  many  examples.  As  we  were  sitting  in  the 
lieutenant's  room  at  Boljanic,  a  message  came  by  tele- 
phone from  Plevlje  to  ask  where  we  were ;  and  after 
replying,  he  told  us  that  he  had  heard  of  our  arrival  at 
Gorazda  on  the  previous  day  by  similar  means.  After 
Boljanic,  the  country  is  perfectly  bare,  as  all  the  trees  had 
been  burnt  off  to  the  stumps,  just  as  if  an  army  had 
ravaged  the  country.  The  barrenness  of  the  country 
would  alone  have  sufficed  to  explain  the  curious  inscrip- 
tion cut  in  German  on  a  stone,  "  Mciisch,  audi  Jiier  cirgcrc 
click  iiichl!"  (''Man,  even  here  vex  not  thyself!")  But 
the  officers  say  that  the  inscription  was  placed  here 
because  the  road  winds  in  serpentines  at  this  point,  so 
that  the  rear  of  an  army  had  the  vexation  of  seeing  the 
van  apparently  a  short  distance  above  them,  while  at  the 
same  time  they  well  knew  that  they  had  to  make  a  long 
detour  in  order  to  reach  the  summit.  Traffic  there  is 
hardly  any ;  only  goats  can  get  a  living  in  this  bare 
country.  One  misses  too  the  cheery  salutation  of  "Dobor 
dan  "  {"  Good-day  ")  with  which  the  peasants  greet  one 
in  Bosnia  ;  for  here  the  natives  pass  one  in  gloomy 
silence,  being  naturally  suspicious  of  any  one  who  is  not 
wearing  a  uniform.  The  next  Austrian  post,  Gotovusa,  is 
in  a  less  desolate  situation  than  its  predecessor  and  com- 
mands fine  views  of  the  mountains.  The  neighbourhood 
seems  also  to  have  considerable  botanical  merits,  for  the 
officer  in  command  there  politely  handed  two  elaborate 
bouquets  of  wild  flowers  to  the  ladies  of  my  party, 
which  he  had  specially  prepared  for  them.  Like  his 
comrade  at  Boljanic,  he  declared  that  he  never  felt  dull, 
for  he  studied  a  great  deal  and  was  a  great  naturalist. 

190 


in  the  Near  East 

Certainly  his  spirits  did  not  seem  to  have  suffered  from 
his  temporary  isolation.  Here,  too,  in  the  midst  of  our 
conversation  the  telephone  began  to  tick,  and  a  message 
arrived  from  the  last  station  to  know  if  we  were  there, 
followed  by  another  to  the  same  effect  from  Plevlje.  It 
was  obvious,  therefore,  that  even  in  the  wilds  of  the  Sand- 
zak  the  whereabouts  of  the  traveller  could  be  ascertained 
at  any  moment  by  means  of  the  telephone  ;  and  when 
during  our  visit  the  telegraph  wire  was  found  on  one 


PI.KVl.JK. 
(From  a  I'liolo.  by  Miss  Vliadicuk.) 

occasion  to  have  been  cut  by  some  mischievous  person, 
the  precise  spot  where  the  telegraphic  communication 
had  been  broken  was  speedily  ascertained  by  means 
of  the  telephone.  It  is  of  course,  from  a  military  point 
of  view,  essential  that  these  advanced  posts  should  be 
connected  with  Bosnia.  After  Gotovusa  we  descended 
rapidly,  and  after  crossing  the  "  Appel  Bridge "  we 
saw  the  towers  of  the  Plevlje  aqueduct  and  arrived  at 
the  comfortable  rooms  provided  for  strangers  in  the 
officers'  quarters. 

191 


Travels  and  Politics 

The  town  of  Plevlje,  or  Taslidza,  to  give  it  its  Turkish 
name,  is  by  far  the  most  important  of  the  three  points 
occupied  by  the  Austrians,  and  even  in  Roman  times  was 
the  site  of  a  considerable  settlement  known  as  Sapua, 
which  w^as  connected  by  a  road  with  the  Adriatic  coast. 
Plevlje,  which  has  greatly  grown  since  the  Occupation, 
consists  of  two  entirely  distinct  parts — the  Austrian  can- 
tonments on  the  slope  of  the  hill  as  you  enter  from  the 
Metalka  road,  and  the  Turkish  town  which  lies  in  a 
complete  hollow.  All  the  hills  around  are  perfectly  bare, 
but  are  picked  out  in  several  places  with  the  initials 
"  F.  J.  I."  (in  one  place  surmounted  by  a  double  eagle)  and 
the  crescent  and  star,  in  white  stones.  Tiie  only  shade 
in  the  place  is  that  provided  by  the  trees  of  the  park 
which  the  Austrians  have  laid  out,  and  before  they  came 
Plevlje  was  destitute  of  vegetation.  The  barracks  of  the 
Austrian  and  of  the  Turkish  soldiers  are,  of  course,  quite 
distinct.  The  town  is  of  considerable  size,  and  there  is 
a  good  Turkish  bazar.  The  inhabitants  are  all  either 
j\I()hammedans  or  Orthodox,  except  four  Catholic 
Albanian  families  who  attend  the  Austrian  church  and 
are  said  to  be  very  devoted  to  tiie  Austrians.  These 
Albanians  do  a  good  trade  in  the  little  silver  filigree 
coffee-cups  and  ornaments  which  they  alone  make,  and 
which  are  usually  on  sale  outside  the  officers'  casino. 
One  of  the  most  remarkable  features  of  the  town  is  the 
Serb  women,  who  here  wear  curious  short  kilts  over  their 
long  garments.  The  centre  of  military  society  in  Plevlje 
is  the  officers'  casino,  a  large  roomy  building,  where  one 
evening,  on  the  occasion  of  a  military  inspection,  we  saw 
some  sixty  officers  sit  down  to  mess.  The  hall  was 
decorated  with  flags — the  Turkish  among  them  in  honour 
of  a  recent  visit  of  the  Pasha — with  pictures  and  busts  of 
the  Emperor  and  Empress,  and  with  devices,  all  the  work 
of  the  officers,  made  out  of  fir-branches.     There  is  a  stage 

192 


in   the   Near   East 

at  the  end  of  the  room  where  gipsy  music  is  performed 
during  dinner  ;  one  of  the  performers  being  a  left-handed 
soldier  who  enjoys  a  high  reputation  in  the  country.  The 
stage  is  at  other  times  used  for  amateur  theatricals,  and 
dances  are  held  in  this  room.  For  Plevlje,  remote  as  it 
is,  possesses  a  considerable  amount  ot  military  society. 
There  are  no  less  than  twenty-four  ladies  there,  mostly 
from  Vienna,  as  the  present  regiment,  largely  composed 
of  Hungarians  and  Roumanians  from  Transylvania,  spent 
five  years  in  the  Austrian  capital  before  it  came  for  three 


"THE    t-ERB   WUMEX,    WHU    HERE    WEAK    .    .    .    KILTS   OVER 
THEIK   LONG   GARMENTS." 

(Front  a  Photo,  by  Miss  Cliadwick.) 

years  to  Plevlje.  The  sudden  change  from  the  Austrian 
capital  to  this  place  was  no  doubt  much  felt  at  first,  but 
Plevlje  enjoys  the  reputation,  as  one  ofticer  remarked  to 
me,  of  a  true  marriage-market,  and  the  girl  who  comes 
to  Plevlje  is  certain  speedily  to  find  a  husband.  The 
General,  Baron  de  Goumoens,  Chamberlain  of  the 
Emperor,  who  is  in  command  of  the  troops  is,  curiously 
enough,  of  Scotch  descent,  for  his  ancestors  hailed  from 
either  Glasgow  or  Stirling. 

The  Pasha  whom  we  visited  with  the  Austrian  Commis- 

193  o 


Travels  and   Politics 

sioner  at  the  konak  is  a  man  of  fifty-six,  but  looks  older. 
He  received  us  in  full  uniform  outside  his  house,  and  took 
us  into  his  sitting-room,  furnished  with  two  book-cases, 
in  one  of  which  I  noticed  a  French  translation  of  Lord 
Palmerston's  private  correspondence.  The  Pasha,  who 
speaks  French,  is  rather  nervous  in  ladies'  society,  although 
his  manners  are  charming.  He  sat  on  the  edge  of  his 
chair  while  we  smoked  cigarettes  and  drank  coffee  and 
syrups.  He  has  no  wife,  but  lives  with  his  old  mother, 
and  has  probably  stayed  longer  in  one  post  than  any  other 
Turkish  official,  for  the  usual  practice  of  the  Sultan  is  to 
move  important  functionaries  from  one  end  of  the  empire 
to  another,  lest  they  should  gain  too  much  influence.  He 
took  us  over  the  Turkish  barracks,  which  adjoin  his  small 
konak.  The  soldiers  are  mostly  Anatolians,  but  some  are 
Albanians,  as  is  the  Pasha  himself.  They  looked  fine, 
healthy  fellows  and  are  said  to  be  well-fed,  but,  as  is  usual 
with  most  Turkish  employes,  their  pay  is  never  forth- 
coming, and  their  turn-out  was  horribly  bad.  Those  who 
have  only  seen  the  Turkish  soldier  in  Constantinople 
sometimes  have  the  pleasant  delusion  that  his  undoubted 
bravery  and  fine  physique  are  accompanied  by  a  smartness 
and  neatness  such  as  we  are  accustomed  to  in  European 
armies.  But  go  to  the  provinces,  to  Crete  or  to  Novi- 
Bazar,  and  the  soldiers  of  the  Pddislidh  are  seen  to  be  very 
different,  so  far  as  their  outfit  goes.  In  these  last  two 
places  one  naturally  notices  their  defects  of  dress  and  drill 
all  the  more  because  one  sees  them  side  by  side  with  well- 
dressed  and  well-drilled  European  troops.  Of  course,  the 
provision  above  mentioned  which  excludes  Turkish 
irregulars  from  the  Sandzak,  has  had  a  most  excellent 
effect  upon  the  state  of  that  district,  which  has  thus  been 
spared  the  performances  of  the  Bashi-Bazouks,  so  active 
in  Crete. 

Apart  from  its  political  and  strategic  importance,  Plevlje 

194 


in  the   Near  East 

possesses,  in  the  Serb  monastery  of  Sveta  Troica,  or  the 
Holy  Trinity,  an  historical  monument  of  considerable 
interest.  The  monastery,  which  is  situated  about  twenty- 
tive  minutes  from  the  town,  in  a  bend  of  the  mountains, 
is  quite  hidden  from  view  by  the  trees  of  the  ravine  until 
one  is  close  upon  it.  One  of  the  monks,  who  entertained 
us  there,  told  us  that  there  were  fifteen  of  them  altogether, 
and  on  the  occasion  of  any  great  national  or  religious 
festival,  the  great  courtyard  and  the  rambling  wooden 
balconies  above    it   are    crammed  with    people.     In   the 


THE   BAZAR,    PLEVLJE. 

(From  a  Photo,  by  Miss  Chadiuick.) 

courtyard  are  the  monuments  of  the  abbots,  and  an  old 
church  which  contains  some  quaint  mediaeval  frescoes 
emerging  from  the  whitewash.  There  are  also  old  pictures 
of  several  ancient  Servian  rulers,  such  as  Uros,  Milutin, 
and  Helena.  The  church  also  contains  the  pastoral  staff 
of  S.  Sava,  which  was  bought  from  the  Turks  by  some 
devout  Serb  when  they  pillaged  the  monastery  at  Milesovo, 
a  few  miles  away,  and  brought  here.  Half  underground 
in  the  courtyard  we  saw  a  small  library,  which  boasted  a 
curiously  illuminated  Serb  Bible,  with  some  extraordinary 

195 


Travels  and   Politics 

pictures  ;  but  most  of  the  books  seemed  to  be  modern 
and  all  of  them  were  mouldy  with  the  damp — for  here,  as 
in  most  places  in  the  East,  the  monks  seem  to  know  and 
care  very  little  about  literary  matters. 

From  Plevlje  to  the  terminus  of  the  Macedonian  line 
at  Mitrovica,  it  takes  four  days  to  ride  over  a  very  rough 
country.  I  am  told  that  the  Turkish  officials  are  not 
desirous  of  carrying  out  the  original  plan,  and  continuing 
this  line  to  Plevlje.  On  the  Contrary,  they  prefer  to  place 
as  many  obstacles  as  possible  in  the  way  of  travellers. 
For  example,  the  road  which  formerly  existed  between 
Priboj  and  Priepolje  was  purposely  placed  under  three 
separate  Turkish  authorities  so  that  traffic  over  it  might 
be  made  as  hard  as  officialdom  could  make  it.  When  a 
great  inundation  destroyed  this  section  of  the  road  at  the 
end  of  1896,  nothing  was  done  to  make  good  the  de- 
struction ;  and  though  the  Pasha,  like  all  Turkish  officials 
whom  I  have  met,  was  "just  telegraphing"  or  "had  just 
telegraphed  "  to  have  it  repaired,  I  suspect  that  it  will  be 
long  before  any  carriage  will  be  able  to  perform  the 
circular  route  from  Plevlje,  lud  Priepolje  and  Priboj,  back 
into  Bosnia. 

The  importance  of  direct  railway  communication  from 
Salonica,  by  means  of  an  extension  of  the  present  line 
from  Mitrovica,  through  the  Sandzak  to  Sarajevo,  it 
would  be  difficult  to  exaggerate.  There  are  consider- 
able natural  difficulties  to  be  overcome,  but  the  political 
obstacles  are  probably  greater  at  present.  One  day, 
however,  but  not  under  Ottoman  auspices,  as  a  former 
Sultan  dreamed,  Plevlje  will  be  a  station  on  the  "  quick 
route"  to  India,  and  Brindisi  will  have  ceded  to  Salonica 
the  privilege,  which  she  has  enjoyed  since  the  days  of 
the  Romans,  of  being  the  chief  port  of  departure  for 
the  East.  Of  one  thing  we  may  be  certain,  that  the 
Sandzak  is  bound  to  play  an  important  part  in  the  history 

196 


in   the   Near   East 

of  the  future,  just  as  it  did  in  that  of  the  past.  But  under 
whose  auspices,  those  of  Austria-Hungary,  or  those  of  the 
two  Serb  states  on  either  side  of  it  ? — that  is  the  question. 
But  that  the  Turk  will  ever  recover  his  full  and  exclusive 
overlordship  of  this  at  present  anomalous  district,  I  do 
not  believe.  For  one  has  but  to  talk  to  the  Ottoman 
officials  in  Albania,  to  find  that  they  regard  the  wave  of 
Turkish  conquest  as  spent  in  Europe.  The  Sandzak  is,  at 
present,  its  high-water  mark  ;  but  no  one  considers  the 
present  situation  as  final.  The  French  proverb,  Cc  n'cst 
que  Ic  provisoirc  qui  vcste,  has  been  tolerably  true  so  far  of 
the  arrangements  made  for  the  Near  East  at  the  Berlin 
Congress.  Yet  no  diplomatist  regards  them  as  the  final 
settlement  of  an  almost  eternal  question— to  whom  shall 
the  Balkan  Peninsula  belong  ? 

Bidding  good  bye  to  our  hospitable  friends  at  the 
casino,  who,  on  the  last  day  of  our  stay,  drank  to  the 
health  of  the  two  ladies  as  "the  only  Englishwomen  who 
had  ever  visited  Plevlje,"  we  returned  to  the  Bosnian 
frontier,  and,  after  a  short  delay,  caused  by  the  desire  of 
the  captain  that  the  ladies  should  visit  an  old  Mussulman 
woman,  we  drove  down  through  the  dark  woods,  illum- 
inated by  fireflies,  to  Cajnica.  On  our  arrival  we  found 
that  the  Bezirksvovsichcr  had  arranged  for  us,  during  our 
absence,  an  excursion  on  a  raft  down  the  Drina  from 
Gorazda  to  Visegrad.  These  Flossparticu,  as  they  are 
called,  are  a  peculiarity  of  Bosnia.  The  river  Drina  flows 
through  the  occupied  territory,  and  for  a  considerable  part 
of  the  way  forms  the  boundary  between  Bosnia  and 
Servia,  finally  joining  the  Save.  It  is  thus  an  excellent 
means  of  conveying  wood  from  the  Bosnian  forests  down 
to  Belgrade,  or  even  further,  the  raftsmen  returning  on 
foot.  When  the  state  of  the  water  is  favourable,  it  is 
customary  to  form  large  rafts  of  the  wood,  partly  composed 
of   sawn  planks,  and  partly  of  rough  beams  of   timber. 

197 


Travels  and   Politics 

When  travellers  are  invited  to  make  the  journey  in  this 
way,  a  seat  of  planks  is  provided  in  the  middle  of  the  raft 
on  which  they  can  sit,  or  if  necessary  stand,  while  the 
raft  is  temporarily  submerged  when  passing  the  rapids. 
During  the  Turkish  times,  these  rapids  were  much  worse 
than  they  are  now  ;  for  a  scheme  which  had  been  drawn 
up  for  blasting  the  rocks  away  was  pigeon-holed  for  a 
number  of  years  in  some  Ottoman  bureau.  The  men  in 
charge  of  the  raft  are  generally  two  in  number,  and  stand 


OUR   RAFT   ON   THE   DRINA. 

(From  a  Photo,  hy  Mifs  Chadwick. 

at  either  end  grasping  the  handle  of  an  immense  rudder. 
They  are  usually  Mussulmans  from  the  little  town  of 
Foca,  which  lies  some  distance  above  Gorazda.  We  had 
also  a  third  native  on  board,  who  earned  his  passage  by 
taking  a  turn  at  one  of  the  rudders,  and  who  skilfully 
jumped  off  the  raft  at  a  place  on  the  shore  near  his 
destination.  We  embarked  just  below  the  bridge  at 
Gorazda,  and  glided  slowly  down  the  stream,  every  now 
and  then  racing  hurriedly  along  as  we  shot  the  rapids. 
The  men  amused  themselves  in  the  intervals  of  steering 

198 


in   the   Near   East 

by  throwing  pieces  of  wood  at  the  wild  ducks  which  were 
constantly  swimming  or  flying  over  the  river,  and  as  the 
heat  became  more  intense,  lay  down  on  their  stomachs 
and  lapped  up  the  water  like  dogs.  For  the  greater  part 
of  the  way  the  Drina  flows  between  high  cliffs  covered 
with  trees,  and  w^hen  we  reached  the  mouth  of  the  green 
Lim,  the  two  rivers  composed  together  a  considerable 
stream.  We  stopped  at  one  small  Mussulman  village 
called  Medjedje,  where  we  landed  a  barrel  of  wine  for  the 
gendarmes  stationed  there,  and  then  went  on  to  Visegrad, 


OLD   BRIDGE   AT  VIS^:GRAD. 

(From  a  Pliolo.  hv  Miss  CJiadwick.) 

having  been  seven  hours  on  the  water.  We  landed  at  the 
foot  of  a  conical  hill  which  has  considerable  fame  in  the 
local  legends,  on  account  of  the  tower  of  "  the  King's  son  " 
Marko,  the  favourite  hero  of  the  Servian  ballads,  who  is 
said  to  have  been  imprisoned  there  for  nine  years,  and 
then  to  have  sprung  at  one  bound  across  the  river.  The 
ruins  of  the  tower  are  still  standing,  and  near  the  water's 
edge  one  is  shown  the  footprint  of  the  hero  and  his 
horse's  hoof-marks. 

199 


Travels   and   Politics 


Visegrad  is  now  only  a  small  place,  for  it  has  not  yet 
recovered  from  the  inundations  of  two  years  ago,  when 
the  Drina  swept  away  156  houses  and  rushed  right  over 
the  old  bridge,  one  of  the  finest  Turkish  monuments 
in  Bosnia,  built  by  a  distinguished  native  of  the  place, 
Mehmed  Pasha  Sokolovic,  or  *'  the  falcon's  son,"  a 
member  of  one  of  the  oldest  Bosnian  families,  who 
attained  to  high  rank  in  the  Turkish  service.  It  was  con- 
structed in  consequence  of  the  frequent  lamentations  of 


(ilPSIES,   VISEGRAD. 

(Fivni  a  Photo,  by  Miss  Chadunck.) 

the  people,  who  were  unable  to  cross  the  river  ;  and  still 
bears  two  long  Turkish  inscriptions  on  the  subject.  In  the 
middle  of  the  bridge  there  was  formerly  a  small  edifice, 
which  has  been  removed,  and  almost  the  entire  coping 
of  the  bridge  was  destroyed  two  years  ago — as  if  to 
belie  the  South  Slavonic  saying,  "  firm  as  the  bridge 
at  Visegrad" — and  has  since  been  repaired.  The  town 
is  being  gradually  rebuilt,  and  its  position  only  six  hours 
distant  from  the  Servian  frontier,  which  is  clearly  visible, 
assures  it   an  important   trade   with    that   country.      The 

200 


in   the  Near  East 


Montenegrins  who  desire  work  in  Servia,  but  who 
generally  fail  to  obtain  it,  pass  and  re-pass  through 
Visegrad  every  year.  The  population  is  half  Mussulman, 
half  Orthodox,  and  there  is  only  one  Roman  Catholic  in 
the  whole  town,  a  curious  instance  of  the  remarkable 
disproportion  of  the  three  principal  confessions  which 
one  finds  in  various  towns  of  Bosnia. 

We  finally  quitted  the  raft  at  Visegrad,  and  set  out  to 
drive  back  to  Sarajevo.  The  climb  up  from  the  valley  of 
the    Drina    is   tremendously   steep,  and   as  the  sun  was 


A    STKKET    SCEXK,    VISKGKAU. 
[Front  a  Photo,  by  Miss  Cliadwick.) 

blazing,  and  as  there  was  hardly  any  shade,  w-e  were  not 
sorry  to  arrive  at  Han  Semec,  the  inn  at  the  top  of  the 
pass  which  is  kept  by  a  loquacious  Jewess  from  Galicia, 
who  talked  incessantly  about  her  six  children  and  deplored 
that  there  was  no  school  for  them  there.  Thence  to 
Rogatica  the  road  was  all  downhill,  and  the  situation  of 
the  latter  place  amply  repaid  us  for  the  trouble  of  reach- 
ing it.  It  is,  indeed,  one  of  the  prettiest  places  in  the 
country,  for  it  lies,  as  one  might  expect  of  an  almost  en- 
tirely Mussulman  town,  in  a  leafy  valley  watered  by 
abundant  streams.     Out  of  its  population  of  3,300,  only 

201 


Travels  and   Politics 

300  are  Christians,  and  it  is  thus  one  of  the  most  con- 
servative towns  in  Bosnia.  Thus  the  Mussuhnans  have 
strenuously  refused  here  to  allow  their  daughters  to  go  to 
school  with  the  Orthodox  girls,  and  have  opposed  the 
erection  of  a  new  girls'  school  on  that  ground.  In 
times  of  fasting,  too,  the  Mussulman  mayor  goes  round 
to  the  cafes  to  see  that  none  of  the  faithful  are  smoking, 
or  even  inhaling  the  smoke  of  the  infidels'  cigarettes  ;  any 
offender  is  severely  punished.   Yet  in  spite  of  this  severity 


CHILDREN   AT  VISEGRAD. 

{From  a  PJwto.  by  Miss  Chndivich.) 

on  the  part  of  the  Mussulman  majority,  the  small  Chris- 
tian minority,  which  is  entirely  composed  of  Serbs,  lives 
peaceably  with  the  other  section  of  the  community. 
Here,  too,  the  Mussulmans  are  noted  for  their  learning, 
and  many  of  them  are  begs.  In  fact,  Rogatica  boasts  of 
having  produced  a  former  SJicik-ul-Isldiii,  or  head  of  the 
Mohammedan  hierarchy  at  Constantinople,  who  founded  a 
mosque  here  called  after  his  name.  A  more  interesting 
mosque,  however,  is  that  "  of  the  Mufti,"  in  the  courtyard 
of  which  is  a  fine  Roman  tomb— for  a  Roman  road  used, 
at    one   time,    to  pass    through    this    place,    and    Roman 

202 


in   the  Near  East 

remains  have  been  found  in  large  quantities  here.  The 
Mussulmans,  with  their  usual  disregard  for  classical  an- 
tiquities, calmly  added  two  steps  of  masonry  to  this 
ancient  piece  of  stonework,  so  that  in  bad  weather,  when 
it  is  too  wet  to  go  up  to  the  minaret,  the  muezzin  can 
mount  on  to  it  and  call  the  faithful  to  prayer.  Another 
stone  of  a  very  different  kind  is  a  huge  Bogomile  monu- 
ment, bearing  a  very  long  inscription  in  Cyrillic  letters, 
which  is  built  into  the  wall  of  the  new  Orthodox  church. 
The  builders  of  this  edifice,  by  way  of  showing  their 
impartiality,  have  committed  another  horrible  act  of 
vandalism  by  cutting  in  two  a  fine  Roman  plaque 
representing  a  man  and  a  woman,  and  putting  one  piece 
on  either  side  of  the  door.  Other  Roman  stones  have 
also  been  employed  by  the  masons,  and  the  gardens  of 
the  barracks  and  the  charming  little  public  garden  contain 
several  more.  The  latter  grounds  have  been  beautifully 
laid  out  on  the  bank  of  a  small  stream  called  the  Rakitnica 
or  "  Crabs'-brook,"  and  are  really  a  model  of  what  a  small 
public  garden  should  be.  It  is  here  that  the  Moslems 
delight  to  come  and  take  their  ease  over  their  coffee,  sup- 
plied from  a  Turkish  kavaiia,  while  in  the  evening  they 
may  also  be  seen  performing  their  ablutions  at  the  spring 
called  Toplik,  which  flows  out  of  the  rocks  near  the  old 
Roman  road. 

After  leaving  Rogatica  we  came  to  the  vast  prehistoric 
burying-ground  of  Glasinac,  which  is  one  of  the  archaeo- 
logical wonders  of  Bosnia,  but  of  which  the  average  man 
would  see  nothing,  if  he  were  not  aware  beforehand  of 
its  existence.  Only  a  few  heaps  of  stones  here  and  there 
mark  the  level  surface  of  the  plain  where  four  years  ago 
the  Anthropological  Congress  held  a  meeting.  The 
theory  is  that  the  bodies  were  laid  upon  the  ground, 
without  burial  of  any  kind,  and  that  stones  were  piled 
upon  them  as  a  tomb — a  practice  which   was  common 

203 


Travels  and  Politics 


enough  among  other  prehistoric  peoples.  We  passed  two 
monuments  of  modern  interest,  both  of  which  com- 
memorate the  battles  of  twenty  short  years  ago.  A  little 
farther  on  we  arriv^ed  at  Podromanja,  a  huge  white 
barrack  standing  alone  in  a  treeless  plain,  and  so  called 
because  it  lies  "at  the  foot"  of  the  Komanja  range  of 
mountains.  The  position  is  one  of  considerable  import- 
ance, for  not  only  does  the  main  telegraph  wire  from 
Vienna  to  Constantinople  pass  along  this  road,  but  also 


OUR   CAKRIAGE   AT   PODROMAXJA. 
(Front  a  Photo,  hy  Miss  Chadivick.) 

the  building  commands  the  country  in  all  directions.  The 
captain,  two  lieutenants,  and  a  Catholic  priest,  on  his 
rounds,  entertained  us  at  lunch  and  presented  us  with 
picture  postcards  of  this  out  of  the  way  place,  on  the 
understanding  that  we  should  send  them  some  with  views 
of  England.  After  a  climb  and  a  drive  between  meadows 
purple  with  vast  masses  of  campanula,  we  reached  the 
pass  of  Naromanja,  an  Alpine  spot.  On  the  other  side 
we  had  a  superb  view  of  the  country  ;  here  and  there  a 
shepherd  was  piping  to  his  flock  in  quite  idyllic  fashion, 

204 


in  the   Near  East 

and  an  occasional  village  of  wooden  houses  diversified 
the  plain  till  we  rejoined  the  Sarajevo  road  at  Han  Der- 
venta.  Of  all  the  journeys  which  I  have  made  through 
the  occupied  territory — and  I  have  travelled  through 
seven  hundred  miles  of  it,  and  most  of  the  distance  more 
than  once — this  was  perhaps  the  most  interesting.  One 
saw  here,  better  than  elsewhere  the  daily  life  of  the 
people,  while  the  forest  and  river  scenery  is  perhaps 
finer  than  elsewhere  in  the  countrv. 


205 


CHAPTER   VI 

BARBARISM   AND   CIVILISATION  :   THE   ALBANIAN   COAST 
AND   CORFU 

IT  is  a  great  change  from  the  Dahnatian,  or  even  from 
the    Montenegrin,    ports   to    the   Albanian    harbours 
which  fringe  the  Adriatic.     Albania  is  one  of  the  riddles 
of  the  Eastern  question.     It  seems  incredible  that  a  fine 
country,  with  at  least  two  harbours  possible  of  develop- 
ment, and  within  a  few  hours'  steam  of  Italy,  should  be 
the  most  uncivilised  land  in  the  Balkan  Peninsula,  and 
that  for  centuries   no  "  European "   power  should   have 
made  any  serious  attempt  to  acquire  it  as  a  colony.     The 
Turkish  Government  has  merely  nominal  authority  over 
the  country,  and  I  remember  well,  when  a  few  years  ago 
the  Turkish  Minister  in  Montenegro  desired  to  visit  the 
Albanian  town  of  Scutari,  he  could  find  no  one  who  was 
willing  to  drive  him,  for  fear  of  those  bullets  of  which 
the  Albanians  always  carry  such  a  quantity.     Here  the 
real   power  is  not  vested    in   the   Governors   sent   from 
Constantinople,  but  in  the  native  chiefs  whose  word  is 
practically   the    only    law    current    in    the    country,   and 
whose    recommendations    are    more    efficient    than    any 
Turkish   teskcreh   for   any  traveller  visiting   the   country. 
One  British  consul  told  me  that  when,  some  years  ago, 
he  travelled  in  Albania,  he  found  the  company  of  his  wife 
the  greatest  safeguard,  for  the  Albanians,  though  perhaps 
somewhat  idealised  by  Byron,  do  not  shoot  women,  or 

206 


Travels  and  Politics  in  the  Near  East 

men  in  their  company.  It  used  to  be  said  that  Italy  had 
certain  designs  upon  this  country.  In  the  first  place,  a 
large  number  of  the  Albanians  are  Roman  Catholics,  and 
the  Roman  Catholic  clergy  has  considerable  influence 
among  them.  Then,  Signor  Crispi  is  of  Albanian  descent, 
and  this  fact  was  not  lost  sight  of  when  he  guided  the 
policy  of  Italy,  in  the  south  of  which  there  are  several 
Albanian  colonies.  But  Albania,  like  most  of  the  Balkan 
lands,  is  split  up  between  contending  religions,  and  it 
may  be  doubted  whether  the  Mussulman  Arnauts  would 
not  strongly  resist  the  attempt  of  a  Christian  power 
to  annex  their  country.  Moreover,  since  her  African 
disasters  Italy  is  hardly  strong  enough  to  cope  with 
one  of  the  most  warlike  nations  in  the  world,  Austria  is 
also  regarded  as  a  possible  candidate  for  the  reversion  of 
Albania,  and  the  Catholic  Albanians  are,  in  many  places, 
on  the  side  of  that  power.  Some  of  the  Mussulmans  too, 
since  they  found  that  their  co-religionists  were  well 
treated  in  Bosnia,  while  the  PddisJidJi  was  slack  in  his 
payments  to  them  when  they  served  in  the  ranks  of  his 
army,  are  said  to  have  turned  their  eyes  in  that  direction  ; 
but  Austrian  officers  have  told  me  that  in  their  opinion  it 
would  be  a  very  difficult  matter  to  conquer  Albania,  and 
at  any  rate  such  a  project  is  not  within  the  range  of 
practical  politics.  A  curious  fact  about  the  Albanians  is 
their  inability  to  form  any  close  national  union  among 
themselves.  With  the  single  exception  of  their  legendary 
hero,  Skanderbeg,  they  have  never  produced  a  great  man 
who  could  rally  the  whole  people  round  him.  In  1880 
it  is  true,  at  a  time  when  the  Albanians  were  alarmed  at 
the  proposed  extension  of  Montenegro  at  their  expense, 
an  Albanian  league  was  formed  which  was  partly  spon- 
taneous, and  partly  perhaps  the  result  of  arguments  more 
or  less  substantial  supplied  from  Constantinople.  This 
year,  too,  an  Albanian  propaganda  was  being  carried  on 

207 


Travels  and   Politics 

in  Rome  by  an  Albanian  leader,  who  was  desirous  of 
forming  some  sort  of  independence  for  his  country.  In 
the  meanwhile,  Albania,  whose  people  are  probably  the 
oldest  inhabitants  of  the  peninsula  and  have  even  been 
identified  by  some  with  the  ancient  Pelasgi,  remains  in  a 
state  which  would  be  scandalous  for  a  negro  republic. 
There,  in  the  words  of  the  philosopher,  "  one  man  is 
a  wolf  to  another."  Human  life  is  of  absolutely  no 
value  whatever,  and  roads  are  almost  entirely  lacking. 
Yet  the  Albanian  possesses  excellent  qualities.  In  Mon- 
tenegro and  the  Hercegovina  he  works  industriously 
for  his  living.  His  physical  courage  is  undeniable,  and 
in  the  case  of  the  Albanian  Mussulmans,  this  natural 
courage  is  increased  by  the  teachings  of  their  religion, 
which  makes  them  seek  eternal  happiness  in  a  warrior's 
death.  I  shall  never  forget  the  devotions  of  an  Albanian 
chief  on  the  deck  of  a  steamer,  performed  with  the 
utmost  unconsciousness  before  the  other  passengers. 
Of  all  the  Sultan's  soldiers,  the  Albanians  are  the  best, 
and  among  the  various  races  of  the  Balkan  Peninsula 
they  have  no  equals  in  military  prowess,  save  their 
hereditary  enemies,  the  Montenegrins.  But,  if  the 
Arnauts  are  a  guard,  they  are  also  a  terror,  to  the 
PddishdJi,  and  that  timorous,  if  crafty,  sovereign  has  not 
the  power,  if  he  has  the  will,  to  reduce  Albania  to  a  state 
of  order.  Thus  what  might  be  one  of  the  finest  countries 
in  Europe,  is  left  in  a  condition  such  as  nowadays  dis- 
graces few  Central  African  tribes.  An  occasional  philo- 
logist, anxious  to  study  the  difficult  Albanian  language, 
a  chance  sportsman,  and  a  few  explorers,  may  traverse 
Albania,  and  an  enterprising  Englishman  has  built  a 
house  at  Scutari,  where  he  spends  a  part  of  the  year. 
But  with  these  exceptions,  the  land  of  the  Skipctar,  as  the 
Albanians  call  themselves,  is  almost  a  terra  incognita,  a 
waste  land  in  an  age  when  all  the  great  powers  desire  to 

208 


in   the   Near   East 

find  new  countries  for  their  superfluous  sons  and    new 
markets  for  their  unnecessary  wares. 

The  first  Albanian  port  at  which  the  steamers  stop  on 
the  way  to  Corfu,  is  called  by  the  grandiloquent  name  of 
San  Giovanni  di  Medua.  One  day,  perhaps,  the  place 
may  do  something  to  deserve  such  a  title  ;  for  every  now 
and  then  a  newspaper  correspondent  at  Constantinople 
reports  that  the  long-projected  line  is  to  be  made  from 
Medua  to  Scutari-in-AIbania,  of  which  it  is  the  natural 
port,  and  then  continued  to  Servia  and  possibly 
Roumania.  Land-locked  Servia  would  then  find  her 
long-sought  outlet  on  the  sea  at  this  unpretending  spot, 
instead  of  at  Salonica — the  dream  of  the  Servian 
enthusiasts — or  among  the  Dalmatian  fiords,  as  was  the 
idea  before  the  Occupation  of  Bosnia  placed  a  solid 
wedge  between  Servia  and  the  sea.  It  is  quite  natural 
that  Servia,  the  only  country  in  our  continent,  except 
Switzerland,  which  has  no  sea-board,  should  feel  the 
want  of  a  haven  of  her  own,  whence  she  can  export  her 
pigs,  which  are  now  almost  exclusively  sent  through  the 
Hungarian  frontier  town  of  Semlin.  But  it  is  very 
doubtful  whether  the  Sultan  will  grant  permission  for 
such  a  line  to  be  made,  or  whether,  even  if  he  consents, 
his  orders  will  be  carried  out.  At  any  rate,  during  all  the 
centuries  that  the  Turk  has  been  owner  of  Albania,  he 
has  not  succeeded  in  making  such  a  simple  thing  as  a 
carriage-road  between  Scutari  and  Medua.  I  could  find 
no  difference  whatever  in  the  condition  of  the  latter 
place,  when  I  re-visited  it  after  an  interval  of  four  years. 
There  had  been  grandiose  talk  in  the  Turkish  papers 
about  the  employment  of  several  hundred  soldiers  on  the 
road  ;  but  the  British  Consular  cavass,  who  had  come 
down  with  those  of  the  French  and  Austrian  Consulates 
at  Scutari  to  fetch  the  Consul's  letters,  told  me  that  it  still 
took  eight  hours'  hard  riding   to   reach   that  important 

209  p 


Travels   and    Politics 

town.  In  what  other  countr}'  in  Europe  except  Turkey, 
could  such  a  state  of  things  exist  ?  The  result  is,  that 
this  naturally  fine  harbour,  perhaps  the  best  in  Albania, 
which  suffers  but  little  from  a  sandbank  near  the  shore, 
is  left  almost  abandoned.  The  Austrian- Lloyd  steamers 
have  the  practical  monopoly  of  the  coasting  trade,  which 
is  largely  composed  of  skins  and  logwood,  and  nothing 
is  done  to  open  up  the  interior  by  making  better  com- 
munication between  it  and  the  sea.  All  is  now  miserable 
at  Medua.  One  wretched  han  represents  the  sleeping 
accommodation  for  a  traveller,  compelled  to  spend  the 
night  there  on  the  way  to  Scutari.  A  few  rickety  cottages, 
a  barrack  on  the  hill,  where  the  ragged  Turkish  soldiers 
are  drilling,  and  the  cosy  house  of  the  Lloyd  agent — 
here,  as  at  all  the  Albanian  ports,  the  one  vestige  of 
civilisation — such  is  the  Medua  of  to-day.  One  splendid 
sight,  indeed,  it  possesses — the  superb  men  of  the  Mirdite 
tribe,  all  armed  to  the  teeth.  Of  course,  every  one  carries 
weapons  here  ;  but  these  Mirdites  are  the  proud  owners 
of  old  swords,  pistols,  and  flint-locks  which  would 
delight  the  heart  of  a  collector.  Fierce  as  these  warriors 
are,  they  take  it  as  a  compliment  when  any  one  desires  to 
examine  their  armoury,  which  they  transport  about  with 
them,  and  allow  a  stranger  to  handle  their  weapons  with 
the  same  easy  nonchalance  with  which,  under  other  circum- 
stances, they  would  shoot  him  at  sight.  When,  however, 
some  Albanians  from  Medua  came  off  to  our  steamer  in 
a  boat,  and  demanded  instant  employment  from  the 
captain,  a  regular  fight  with  the  oars  ensued,  and  only 
the  presence  of  mind  of  that  officer  prevented  swords 
being  drawn  and  pistols  fired.  A  rougher  looking  set  I 
have  rarely  seen  than  these  furious  boatmen  in  their 
sheep-skin  coats,  which  gave  them,  indeed,  the  appear- 
ance of  beasts  rather  than  human  beings. 

If  Medua  be  one  of  the  Turks'  many  lost  opportunities, 

2IO 


in   the   Near   East 

Durazzo,  the  next  place  on  the  coast,  is  a  terrible  example 
of  fallen  greatness.  As  one  walks  through  the  poor  and 
ill-paved  streets  of  this  decayed  town,  followed  by  some 
Turkish  spy,  suspected  by  every  ragged  soldier  that  one 
passes,  one  can  scarcely  realise  that  this  was  once  the 
flourishing  Dyracchium,  the  starting-point  of  the  great 
Egnatian  road  to  Constantinople,  which  Cicero  chose  as 
his  place  of  exile  because  it  was  '*  so  conveniently  near  to 
Italy,"  which  once  saw  Cresar  and  Pompey  disputing  the 
mastership  of  the  world  on  the  plains  outside  its  walls, 
which  was  much  later  the  coveted  goal  of  great  Bulgarian 
conquerors,  and  which  witnessed  the  strange  adventure, 
and  owned  the  temporary  sovereignty,  of  a  French  prince- 
let  in  the  confusion  of  the  dark  ages.  A  paltry  town  of 
five  thousand  inhabitants  is  all  that  is  now  left  of  so  much 
greatness,  and  the  most  interesting  thing  at  Durazzo  is  its 
ruins.  For  there,  rather  than  in  the  squalid  shops,  you 
will  find  some  connection  with  its  past.  Here  and  there 
on  some  old  house  fine  pieces  of  sculpture  have  been 
stuck  into  the  brickwork,  and,  in  the  ancient  gate  in  the 
walls,  on  the  country  side  of  the  town,  I  noticed  several 
beautiful  specimens  of  sculpture,  one,  very  perfect, 
representing  a  centaur,  but  all  washed  over  with  the 
bluish  lime  of  the  Turkish  official.  The  prevalence  of 
Italian,  too,  as  the  language  of  the  traders,  shows  that  the 
old  communication  with  Italy  is  kept  up.  But  so  long 
as  the  Turkish  flag  waves  over  the  crumbling  fortifications 
of  Durazzo,  where  the  fig  tree  alone  is  flourishing,  the 
great  days  of  the  town's  past  will  not  return.  There  is 
talk,  indeed,  of  a  railway  from  Monastir,  in  Macedonia, 
the  terminus  of  the  present  Salonica-Monastir  line,  to 
Durazzo,  or  to  Valona,  the  next  harbour  along  the  coast. 
Since  the  late  war,  the  omnipotent  Germans  have  urged 
the  obvious  military  advantages  of  this  means  of 
connection  between  the   -^gean  and  the   Adriatic.       In 

211 


Travels  and   Politics 

fact,  some  years  ago  the  line  was  surveyed,  at  the  instiga- 
tion of  the  late  Baron  Hirsch,  from  a  commercial  point  of 
view.  The  surveyors  then  reported  that  it  would  not 
pay,  and  the  experience  of  Baron  Hirsch's  other  Turkish 
railways  has  not  been  encouraging — to  the  Turks.  So 
Albania  is  likely  for  some  time  to  remain  without  a 
railway  of  any  kind  ;  indeed,  even  if  the  Turkish  Govern- 
ment were  willing,  the  native  chiefs  would  probably 
object,  just  as  they  objected  to  the  existing  line  from 
Salonica  to  Mitrovica,  which  was  only  allowed  to  be 
made  on  condition  that  it  did  not  pass  near  their 
particular  preserves. 

Durazzo  has  nothing  else  of  interest,  unless  it  be  the 
picture  of  the  Madonna  in  the  church  of  Santa  Lucia, 
which  is  said  to  be  a  portrait  of  the  late  Austrian 
Empress — a  likeness  which  did  not  strike  me  when  I  saw 
it.  Valona,  or  Avlona,  which  is  the  largest  place  between 
Durazzo  and  Corfu,  is  a  much  more  cheerful  town. 
The  harbour,  sheltered  to  the  south  by  the  end  of  that 
rather  insignificant  range,  the  ''  Acroceraunian  "  moun- 
tains, which  Horace  prayed  that  Virgil  might  escape  on 
his  travels  to  Greece,  and  which  Shelley  found  a  sonorous 
ending  to  a  verse,  is  a  large  one,  and  is  further  protected 
by  the  islet  of  Sasseno,  which,  although  forgotten  by 
some  geographers,  is  in  reality  the  northernmost 
possession  of  the  Greek  kingdom.  The  landing-place 
is  a  mere  collection  of  sheds,  chiefly  important  as  a 
scnin  for  the  Albanian  capital  of  Joannina;  the  town  of 
Valona  is  half  an  hour's  walk  inland,  and  seems  to  be  a 
fairly  flourishing  Turkish  mart,  prettily  situated  amid 
trees  and  meadows,  where  the  white-befezzed  Albanians 
were  busy  with  the  hay.  A  large  house  on  the  left,  on 
which  the  storks  were  perching,  attracted  my  attention, 
and  I  found  on  inquiry,  that  thereby  hung  a  tale.  Its 
owner,  a  rich  local  magnate,  suspected  by  the  Govern- 

212 


in   the   Near   East 

ment  at  Constantinople,  was  summoned  to  put  in  an 
appearance  at  the  capital.  Fearing  to  go  by  land,  lest 
he  should  be  murdered  on  the  way,  he  escaped  by 
a  sailing-boat  to  the  nearest  Italian  port  of  Otranto, 
whence  he  made  his  way  by  sea  to  the  Turkish  capital, 
only  to  discover  that  he  was  expected  to  remain  there  as 
the  prisoner  or  the  guest — the  terms  are  almost  synony- 
mous— of  the  Pddishdli.  When  I  returned  to  Valona,  I 
found  his  house  falling  into  decay,  so  I  conclude  that  he 
is  either  dead  or  in  the  same  dubious  position  as  before. 
Of  course,  such  cases  are  extremely  common,  from  Ghazi 
Osman  Pasha,  the  prisoner  of  Yildiz,  downwards.  Even 
our  inoffensive  party  attracted  the  greatest  suspicion  at 
Valona,  and  a  Turkish  soldier,  who  saw  our  camera, 
thought  it  his  duty  to  follow  us  from  the  town  to  the 
landing-place,  and  was  not  satisfied  till  he  had  accom- 
panied us  on  board  the  steamer. 

From  Valona  southward  stretches  an  iron-bound 
coast  without  a  tree  and  almost  without  a  habitation, 
until  one  reaches  the  poor  little  town  of  Santi  Quaranta, 
so  called  from  a  ruined  chapel  of  the  "  Forty  Saints," 
which,  after  an  almost  unknown  existence  of  many  a 
long  year,  suddenly  obtained  historic  reputation  in  the 
Greco-Turkish  war  of  1897.  tor  the  bombardment  of  this 
unimportant  hamlet,  which  consisted  before  the  war  of 
a  few  houses,  an  old  semicircular  fort  near  the  shore  and 
a  bigger  new  one  on  the  hill  above  it,  commanding  the 
road  to  Joannina — for  this,  like  Valona,  is  a  <<cahi  for  the 
Albanian  capital — -was  the  one  achievement  of  the  Greek 
fleet.  I  saw  Santi  Quaranta  a  few  days  after  the  bombard- 
ment, and  found  little  changed  there.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  such  destruction  as  was  done  was  at  the  expense  of 
the  Greek  inhabitants  ;  for  here,  as  in  most  Turkish  sea- 
ports, the  population  is  chiefly  Hellenic.  The  sole  prize 
of  victory  was  a  cargo  of  vegetables,  which  was  towed 

213 


Travels  and  Politics  in  the  Near  East 

over  to  Corfu  in  triumph  and  received  with  acclamation. 
Aristophanes,  for  whose  genius  the  late  war  was  exactly 
suited,  would  have  made  an  admirable  scene  out  of  this 
incident  with  a  sly  allusion  to  Euripides,  the  "  son  of  the 
vegetable-seller,"  included.  The  solitary  cypress — that 
favourite  Turkish  tree — which  was  always  the  most  con- 
spicuous object  at  Santi  Quaranta,  still  stands  there,  and 
seemed  to  wave  farewell  to  us,  as  we  crossed  over  from 
Epirus  to  Corfu,  from  barbarism  to  civilisation. 

Of  all  the  islands  that  swim  in  the  blue  Ionian  sea, 
Corfu  is  b}^  far  the  most  delightful.  Often  as  I  have 
visited  it,  alike  in  time  of  peace  and  in  time  of  war,  I 
have  never  ceased  to  remember  the  first  impression 
which  it  made  upon  me  when  I  reached  it  after  a 
long  imprisonment  in  the  fogs  of  London.  No  one, 
landing  in  this  climate  amidst  this  vegetation,  where 
the  roses  and  the  orange-blossom  scent  the  air,  where  the 
olive  grows  like  the  oak  with  us,  and  the  atmosphere  is 
so  clear  that  you  can  see  every  line  in  the  bare  Albanian 
mountains  opposite,  can  wonder  that  Homer  chose  this 
spot  as  the  scene  of  his  hero's  reception  by  the  Phaeakian 
king,  or  that  Horace  described  the  life  of  a  Phsakian  as 
being  the  ideal  of  idleness.  Away  with  the  dull  com- 
mentators, who  would  rob  Corfu  of  the  honour  of  the 
Odyssey  !  Who  would  not  prefer  the  time-honoured 
legend,  still  strongly  rooted  in  the  place,  which  identities 
every  incident  and  every  scene  in  that  marvellous 
narrative  !  Over  on  the  farther  shore  of  the  old  harbour, 
where  the  fishermen  have  stretched  their  nets,  they  show 
as  the  olive-grove  where  Nausikaa  found  the  Ithakan 
king  asleep.  Out  at  the  mouth  of  this  disused  creek, 
a  cypress-covered  islet  with  a  tiny  white  chapel  on  it  is 
said  to  be  the  famous  Phccakian  ship,  which  was  struck 
by  the  sea-god  in  his  wrath  and  turned  into  a  rock. 
There   are  several   claimants  to  this  honour  round  the 

214 


Travels  and   Politics 

coast  of  Corfu  ;  but  none  is  so  graceful  as  this,  and  no 
other  islet  answers  so  completely  to  the  Homeric  descrip- 
tion. And,  as  you  drive  out  to  the  "  one-gun  battery," 
which  commands,  or  rather  commanded,  the  spot — for 
the  gun  has  gone  with  the  English  who  placed  it  there — 
you  are  reminded  by  the  very  names  of  the  villas  and  the 
roads — "  Road  of  the  Phaeakians,"  "  Villa  of  Alkinous  " 
— of  the  dim  heroic  past  of  Corfu.  Even  the  very 
drop-scene  at  the  little  theatre,  where  good  Italian 
plays  are  performed  before  one  of  the  most  critical 
audiences  in  the  Near  East,  represents  the  entertainment 
of  Odysseus  by  his  Phaeakian  hosts.  And,  as  Mr. 
Stillman,  perhaps  the  highest  authority  on  such  a 
matter,  once  remarked,  the  Homeric  hero  of  many 
wiles  and  many  wanderings  is  a  not  uncommon  type 
among  the  islanders  of  to-day.  No  wonder  that  in 
this  marvellous  island,  for  which  nature  has  done  so 
much,  and  upon  which  the  first  of  poets  has  cast  the 
charm  of  the  earliest  and  freshest  of  romances,  the  late 
Empress  of  Austria  should  have  "  built  her  soul  a 
lordly  pleasure-house."  But  the  gleaming  white  villa, 
"  Achilleion,"  which  rises  from  among  the  olive-groves 
of  Gastouri,  now  knows  her  no  more.  The  poetic  dream 
of  the  Empress  is  over,  and  the  frescoes,  and  the  stables, 
and  all  the  rest  of  her  fancies  are  to  be  converted  to  the 
use  of  some  public  institution  of  the  most  prosaic  kind. 

Corfu  is,  indeed,  a  place  of  memories.  Its  glories,  one 
fears,  are  rather  of  the  past  than  of  the  present.  Few 
persons  in  England  seem  to  realise  the  mistake  which 
the  British  Government  made  in  handing  over  the  Seven 
Islands  in  1864  to  the  Hellenic  kingdom.  1  do  not 
mean  merely  from  the  point  of  view  of  British  interests 
in  sacrificing  to  popular  clamour  a  superb  position,  upon 
which  Napoleon  I.  in  his  time  had  set  the  utmost  store; 
but  I  refer  to  the  material  interests  of  the  Islanders  them- 

216 


in   the   Near   East 

selves.  Nowadays  in  Corfu,  one  is  told  on  every  hand 
that  the  prosperity  of  the  island  ceased  when  the  British 
left,  and  I  remember  hearing  one  excited  Corliote  lady 
upbraid  the  British  Government  of  that  day  for  what  she 
called  "  an  act  of  desertion  "  !  Desertion,  forsooth,  when 
Ionian  patriots  and  newspapers  of  the  fifties  and  early 
sixties,  let  loose  by  Lord  Seaton's  unwise  reforms, 
implored  Great  Britain  to  withdraw  the  Protectorate, 
which  she  had  exercised  since  1814,  and  when  Great 
Britain  took  them  at  their  word  and  let  them  enjoy 
the  blessings  of  "  liberty,"  ''  nationality,"  and  "  the  great 
Greek  idea "  to  their  hearts'  content  !  It  is  pitiful  to 
think  of  what  Corfu  has  lost  by  this  triumph  of  eloquence, 
expressed  in  faultless  Greek — for  some  of  the  anti-British 
orators,  whose  speeches  I  have  read,  had  all  a  clever 
schoolboy's  facility  of  imitation,  and  had  obviously 
chosen  Demosthenes  as  their  model.  Even  the  Corfiote 
historians  of  that  time  admit  the  great  material  blessings 
conferred  by  our  rule  on  the  island.  After  travelling 
through  continental  Greece,  when  one  comes  back  to 
Corfu,  one  notices  more  than  before  what  every  one  had 
pointed  out  at  one's  first  visit,  that  the  Greek  mainland 
has  no  such  roads  as  those  which  the  British  constructed 
in  Corfu,  Cephalonia,  and  Zante.  These  fine  highways 
are  now  neglected  ;  but  the  aqueduct  which  was  made 
by  a  British  Lord  High  Commissioner  still  supplies  the 
town  of  Corfu  with  its  admirable  drinking-water.  A 
gentleman  who  lived  in  the  island,  under  British 
rule,  told  me  that  he  could  well  remember  the  time 
when  eight  British  regiments  were  quartered  here,  and 
when  thrice  every  year,  on  the  festival  of  S.  Spiridion, 
the  patron  saint  of  Corfu,  the  whole  of  the  garrison 
formed  a  line  around  the  Esplanade,  while  the  Lord 
High  Commissioner,  in  his  robes  of  office,  his  white 
silk    stockings   and    buckled    shoes,    followed   the   body 

217 


Travels  and   Politics 

of  the  saint  as  it  was  borne  in  solemn  procession 
through  the  town.  This  respect  for  their  rehgion 
greatly  pleased  the  Orthodox  Greeks,  and  when  Mr. 
Gladstone  came  out  here  in  1858  to  inquire  into 
the  grievances  of  the  islanders,  and  made  his  cele- 
brated tour  of  inspection,  nothing  that  he  did  delighted 
the  lonians  more  than  his  tactful  obeisances  to  the 
Corfiote  hierarchy,  whose  hands  he  kissed,  like  a  faith- 
ful son  of  the  Church.  The  presence  of  so  many  British 
soldiers  and  of  several  very  highly  paid  British  officials, 
naturally  caused  a  large  amount  of  money  to  be  spent 
in  the  Islands,  especially  in  Corfu.  In  those  days  "St. 
George's  Cavalry,"  as  the  English  sovereigns  were  called 
colloquially,  circulated  in  large  numbers  in  the  Islands, 
while  now  the  paper  money,  which  does  duty  in  Greece 
for  coin  of  the  realm,  is  always  depreciated.  Since  the 
three  Powers  guaranteed  the  Greek  Loan,  the  exchange 
has  been  considerably  more  favourable  to  the  Greeks 
than  it  was,  and  it  dropped  from  forty-four  drachmai  to 
thirty-four  for  the  sovereign  (which  is  nominally  worth 
only  twenty-live  drachmai),  the  day  that  the  telegram 
announcing  this  fact  reached  Corfu.  No  country 
indeed,  except  perhaps  Turkey,  has  such  an  unsatis- 
factory currency  as  Greece.  Gold  and  silver  have 
disappeared  from  circulation,  though  silver  curiously 
enough  is  found  in  Crete  ;  their  place  has  been  taken 
by  paper  notes,  usually  dirty  and  greasy  and  some- 
times almost  crumbling  to  pieces  from  age  and  use. 
Occasionally  the  notes  become  so  emaciated  that 
they  have  to  be  fastened  together  by  slips  of  paper. 
Besides,  to  the  confusion  of  the  foreigner  the  notes 
for  ten  drachmai  are  frequently  cut  in  halves,  each 
half  being  equivalent  to  live  drachmai,  quite  inde- 
pendent of  the  other.  As  notes  exist  for  sums  so 
low  as  one   drachma   it   may  be   imagined  how  serious 

218 


in   the  Near  East 

this  question  is.  Trade  has  naturally  fallen  off  to 
a  great  extent  in  Corfu  since  British  days.  Our 
Consul  told  me  that  the  whole  commerce  of  the 
island  was  not  worth  more  than  ^"250,000  a  year  now. 
Yet  the  population  of  the  island  has  increased  from 
71,736  in  1864  to  90,660  at  the  last  census  in  1896, 
that  of  the  town  from  25,581  to  29,070.  Socially,  of 
course,  the  change  is  enormous.  In  the  British  days 
there  was  quite  a  brilliant  society  in  the  capital.  The 
station  was  an  extremely  favourite  one,  and  many  of 
the  modern  Nausikaas  of  Corfu  found  husbands  among 
the  British  ofticers  of  the  garrison.  It  was,  therefore, 
perhaps  not  unnatural  that  the  Corfiote  aristocracy, 
descendants  of  Venetian  noble  families,  who  alone 
among  the  Greeks  still  use  their  Venetian  titles,  were 
strongly  opposed  to  the  union.  Now,  socially,  Corfu 
is  changed,  though  there  is  reason  to  hope  that  it  may 
become,  in  the  future,  a  favourite  resort  for  the  winter 
and  spring.  Although  the  town  and  island  of  Corfu,  as 
being  the  seat  of  the  Lord  High  Commissioner,  benefited 
most  from  the  British  protectorate,  I  have  heard  the 
same  regrets  expressed  at  Zante,  which  was  not  so  highly 
favoured.  During  the  late  war  there  was  actually  current 
a  story  that  some  Zantiotes  intended  to  hoist  the  British 
flag,  in  their  despair  at  the  misfortunes  of  their  country. 
These  facts  have  practical  importance  at  the  present 
time,  because  it  has  been  suggested  by  a  high  authority 
that  Crete,  like  Corfu,  would  be  better  prepared  for 
ultimate  union  with  Greece,  if  she  first  had  half  a 
century  of  Western  administration.  It  is  also  possible 
that  after  such  an  experience  the  Cretans  might  not 
desire  to  be  formally  annexed  to  Greece. 

The  main  grievance  of  the  lonians  against  the  Greek 
Government  is  that  whereas,  in  British  days,  the  taxes 
were  lower,  and  were  then  spent  in  the  improvement  of 

219 


Travels  and  Politics 

education,  roads,  and  sanitation  of  the  Seven  Islands, 
they  are  now  higher  and  are  shared  between  the  Greeks 
of  the  mainland  and  the  Islanders.  It  is  contended  that, 
in  common  with  all  the  other  Greek  provinces,  the 
Ionian  Islands  are  comparatively  neglected,  while  every- 
thing is  spent  upon  Athens  and  the  Pir?eus.  The  Cor- 
fiotes,  in  particular,  complain  that  the  King,  who  was 
received  with  enthusiasm  on  the  cession  of  the  island  to 
Greece,  now  hardly  ever  visits  the  charmingly  situated 
villa  of  Mon  Repos,  which  he  possesses  there.  Every 
year  there  is  a  rumour  that  he  is  coming,  but  still  he 
never  comes.  Yet  this  villa,  the  grounds  of  which  are 
thrown  open  to  the  public,  commands  a  view  almost 
unequalled  in  Greece,  and  was  intended  as  the  winter 
resort  of  the  late  Tsar,  at  the  beginning  of  his  fatal 
illness.  Beneath  the  terrace  is  the  azure  sea,  with  here 
and  there  the  bright  red  sail  of  a  fishing  vessel,  and  in 
the  distance  the  faint  outline  of  a  Greek  gunboat,  while 
opposite  is  the  long  range  of  the  Albanian  mountains. 
All  around  is  a  most  luxuriant  vegetation.  Giant  aloes 
and  hedges  of  prickly  pears,  a  forest  of  orange  trees 
which  recall  the  golden  gardens  of  the  Hesperides,  huge 
masses  of  roses,  feathery  palms,  fig  trees  with  the  fruit 
just  beginning  to  colour,  the  eternal  olive,  and  the 
solemn  cypress  are  all  here  in  wild  profusion.  Here 
the  dust  and  din  of  modern  Athens  are  absent,  and  all 
is  peace. 

There  are  still  remains  of  the  British  time,  besides  the 
roads  and  other  public  works,  to  be  found  in  Corfu. 
Where  once  the  Ionian  Assembly  harangued  and  intrigued 
and  petitioned  for  union  with  Greece,  the  English  chap- 
lain now  holds  his  service,  his  vestry  is  the  old  guard- 
room, the  altar  stands  where  once  stood  the  chair,  and 
the  pews  are  placed  in  the  former  room  of  the  Govern- 
ment and  Opposition  benches.     I  saw  in  a  room  of  the 

220 


in  the  Near  East 

deserted  palace,  the  former  residence  of  the  Lord  High 
Commissioner,  where  once  the  Upper  House  of  the 
Ionian  Legislature  met,  the  historic  parchment  contain- 
ing the  final  vote  of  that  body  in  favour  of  "  union 
with  the  Hellenic  Kingdom,  under  his  Majesty  King 
George  L  and  his  successors,"  with  the  signatures  of  the 
Ionian  legislators  beneath  the  vote.     It  was  the  last  Act 


ROYAL  PALACE,  FORMER  RESIDENCE  OF  BRITISH  LORD  HIGH  COMMISSIONER. 

(From  a  Pliolo.  by  Mr.  C.  A.  Miller.) 


— the  swan-song — of  the  Ionian  parliament.  Where  once 
the  senate  of  six  met,  there  is  nothing  now  save  a  few 
portraits  ;  the  stone  figure  of  Britannia  has  been  long 
removed  from  the  roof  of  the  palace,  and  the  trireme 
of  the  Pha3akians,  turned  into  stone  like  the  vessel  that 
brought  Ulysses  to  Ithaca  in  the  old  Homeric  story, 
alone  crowns  the  edifice.  The  temple,  erected  to  ''  King 
Tom,"   the  first   and  most  autocratic   Lord   High  Com- 


221 


Travels   and   Politics 

missioner,  is  still  to  be  seen  on  the  great  open  space 
in  front  of  the  old  Venetian  fortress.  The  public  library 
is  still  crammed  with  English  law  reports.  The  older 
men  retain  a  considerable  knowledge  of  English,  while 
the  rising  generation  plays  a  species  of  cricket,  which 
is  evidently  a  survival  of  the  British  Protectorate.  Not 
a  few  of  the  English-speaking  Greeks  in  the  Levant  tell 
one  that  they  learnt  our  language  in  the  old  days  of 
the  Septinsular  Republic,  and  you  may  still  see  English 
signboards  in  the  narrow  streets  of  Corfu,  which  inform 
you  that  this  place  is  the  "  public-house  of  the  British 
Navy,"  or  that  the  liquors  cost  so  many  "  pences "  a 
glass. 

But  the  prevailing  feature  of  the  town  of  Corfu  to-day 
is  its  cosmopolitan  appearance.  Long  before  one  has 
set  foot  on  dry  land,  a  flotilla  of  little  boats  puts  off  to 
meet  one,  and  soon  a  crowd  of  jews,  Greeks,  and  Italians, 
clad  in  all  sorts  of  costumes,  looking  exactly  like  the 
typical  banditti  of  an  Italian  opera,  swarms  up  on  to  the 
deck.  I  shall  never  forget  the  enthusiastic  greeting 
which  awaited  us  during  the  war  last  year  when  we 
arrived  here  on  a  steamer  bearing  a  number  of  Italian 
volunteers.  I  had  witnessed  on  the  previous  evening  the 
send-off  of  the  Italians  at  Barletta,  a  little  Apulian  town 
on  the  railway  between  Ancona  and  Brindisi,  and  very 
striking  it  was.  But  that  was  nothing  compared  with  the 
scene  which  awaited  them,  and,  indeed,  I  may  say  us — 
for  all  the  passengers  were  included  in  the  welcome — at 
Corfu.  When  our  steamer  turned  the  corner  of  the  little 
island  of  Vido,  into  the  harbour,  a  shout  of  greeting  rose 
from  the  dense  crowds  which  lined  the  esplanade  and 
thronged  the  quays.  Frantic  cries  of  £?'('/tY?  Vlialia  rent 
the  air  as  the  red  shirts  of  the  Garibaldians  were  spied 
from  the  shore,  cries  which  were  transformed  into  Evviva 
la  soliddvita  dci  popoli,  when  the  Corfiotes  noticed  three 

222 


in  the  Near  East 

Danish  nurses  among  the  passengers.  There  were  no 
speeches  on  landhig,  that  being  an  honour  reserved  for 
Ricciotti  Garibaldi,  to  whom  on  his  visit  M.  Nicholas  G. 
Cotsakis,  the  eloquent  President  of  the  Court  of  Appeal 
at  Corfu,  had  delivered  a  patriotic  address  in  flowing 
French.  But  when,  later  in  the  day,  the  steamer  pro- 
ceeded on  its  way  to  Patras,  the  garrison  turned  out  to 
do  honour  to  the  departing  volunteers,  while  a  long  lile 
of  carriages  conveyed  a  bevy  of  nurses  of  all  nationalities 
down  to  the  harbour  amidst  the  waving  of  handkerchiefs, 
the  tiring  of  revolvers,  and  other  demonstrations  of 
patriotism  and  gratitude.  In  war  time  of  course  all 
communication  with  the  Turkish  mainland  was  cut  off, 
for  the  treaty  of  1864,  by  which  the  Seven  Islands  were 
finally  and  formally  ceded  to  the  young  Hellenic 
Kingdom,  stipulated  for  the  perpetual  neutrality  of  Corfu 
and  Paxo.  At  that  time  no  one  opposed  this  declaration 
of  neutrality  more  strongly  than  the  Greeks  themselves  ; 
but  the  fears  of  Austria,  anxious  for  her  Dalmatian 
possessions,  prevailed  with  Great  Britain,  France,  and 
Russia,  the  three  "high  contracting"  Governments  of  the 
one  part,  and  last  year  the  Greeks  were  reaping  the  reward 
of  that  decision.  So  at  Corfu  we  were  like  spectators, 
privileged  to  look  on  at  the  conflict,  without  the  least  risk 
of  being  involved  in  the  fray.  Indeed  it  was  difficult  to 
believe  that  one  was  living  in  a  country  at  war  with  its 
neighbours.  And  the  contrast  was  all  the  more  remarkable 
because  that  neighbour's  territory  is  only  separated  from 
us  at  Corfu  by  a  narrow  channel,  in  one  place  barely 
three  miles  across.  From  the  grass-grown  heights  of  the 
grand  old  fortress,  which  the  ubiquitous  Venetians  erected 
here  in  the  days  of  their  long  supremacy,  we  could 
see  through  this  clear,  blue  atmosphere  every  line  and 
every  fold  of  the  rugged  Albanian  mountains,  with  here 
and  there  a  scattered  hamlet  far  up  above  the  coast. 

223 


Travels  and  Politics 


Thence  in  ordinary  times  come  rough  mountaineers  in 
their  national  costume,  with  their  huge  baggy  trousers, 
vast  cloaks  of  frieze  and  big  turned-up  shoes  with  great 
tassels  fastened  on  the  toes.  Then  there  are  the  up-to- 
date  Corfiotes,  with  the  conventional  top-hat  of  Western 
Europe,  and  numbers  of  Italians,  Jews,  and  people  of 
other    nationalities    from    all    parts    of   the    East.     The 


"  ROUGH   MOUNTAINEERS  .   .   .    WITH   THEIR   VAST 
CLOAKS   OF   FRIEZE." 

{From  a  Pholo.  by  Miss  CUadwich.) 

women  wearing  the  graceful  Greek  headdress,  and  the 
barefooted  urchins  who  run  about  the  streets  and  beg  for 
halfpence  or  offer  boxes  of  matches  after  the  fashion  of 
the  youthful  Londoner,  complete  the  picture.  In  the 
evening  the  cafes  on  the  esplanade  are  full  of  people 
reading  the  Athenian  or  the  local  papers,  of  which  there 
are  three  every  week,  and  discussing  politics  over  their 

224 


in  the  Near  East 

cups  of  coffee  with  the  ardour  which  the  modern  Greek 
always  exhibits  when  he  turns  his  attention  to  pubHc 
affairs,  for  there  is  no  country  in  which  so  much  interest 
is  taken  in  poHtics.  During  the  war  the  hotel  here  was  a 
microcosm  of  the  whole  Eastern  question.  From  Satur- 
day to  Monday  we  had  the  commander  of  the  Greek 
fleet  vainly  bombarding  Prevesa,  the  cannonade  of  which 
was  distinctly  audible  across  the  sea.  We  had  the  official 
Turkish  view  represented  by  Georgi  Pasha  Berovic,  the 
ex-Governor  of  Crete,  who  tied  to  Corfu  after  abandoning 
his  post  as  untenable,  and  had  been  living  with  his  wife, 
a  Greek  lady,  to  whom  he  was  absolutely  devoted,  in  a 
pretty  villa  at  Santi  Deca,  a  village  not  far  from  this  town. 
He  had  come  into  the  hotel,  preparatory  to  starting  for 
Scutari-in-Albania.  Then,  in  marked  contrast  to  the 
gloomy  and  crestfallen  ex-Governor  and  the  glib  Greeks, 
who  made  faces  as  he  passed,  there  was  his  Montenegrin 
attendant,  a  giant  of  immense  strength,  who  sat  all  day 
outside  the  hotel  longing  for  the  steamer  which  should 
take  him  home  to  his  beloved  Black  Mountain.  This 
sturdy  Highlander  of  Crnagora  regarded  the  warlike 
enthusiasm  of  his  Greek  neighbours  with  utter  in- 
difference. It  was  not  his  business,  this  Greco-Turkish 
war,  for  his  Prince  had  resolved  to  be  neutral.  But  the 
giant's  sunburnt  face  brightened  as  I  addressed  him  in 
his  native  Serb  ;  and  on  learning  that  I  had  stayed  in 
Cetinje  and  had  been  honoured  with  an  audience  by  his 
Gospodar,  he  slapped  me  on  the  back  and  told  how  in  the 
Turco-Montenegrin  war  of  1877  he  shot  seven  Turks  with 
his  revolver  and  cut  off  their  heads  afterwards  with  his 
shining  yataghan.  Like  a  true  son  of  the  Black 
Mountain,  he  showed  me  this  self-same  revolver,  with 
every  barrel  loaded,  and  then  went  off  into  praise  of  the 
Prince  of  Montenegro  and  the  fine  air  of  his  mountain 
capital.     Contrast    number  three  :  we  had  an  intensely 

225  Q 


Travels  and  Politics 

patriotic  Greek  lady,  the  wife  of  an  Englisliman,  who  was 

ever  ready  to  defend  her  countrymen  against  criticism  ; 

the  Corliote  Judge  alluded  to  above,  who  was  never  tired 

of  denouncing   the    Powers    for    what    he    picturesquely 

described  as  their  "  assistance  of  that  crowned  assassin, 

the  red  Sultan "  ;  and  the  Mayor  of  Corfu,  who  took  a 

calmer,  but  not  less  patriotic,  view  of  the  situation.     No 

one    here    talked    of     anything,    thought    of    anything, 

dreamed  of  anything,  but  the  war.     The  populace  spent 

its  whole  time  in   studying  maps  in  the  streets  and  its 

spare  lepid  in    buying  little  scraps  of   paper — telegrams 

from  Athens.     Every  evening  a  street  orator  could  collect 

a  crowd  in  a  moment,  and  the  Greek  passion  for  politics 

was  now  gratified  to  the   utmost.     Indeed,  so  absorbed 

were  the  postal  authorities  in  Athens  with   the  war  that 

they  forgot  to  send  to  Corfu  a  supply  of  postcards,  so 

that  this  island  presented  the   unique   spectacle    of    not 

possessing  a  single  postcard.     But   beneath   it  all    there 

was  a  strong  and  resolute  feeling  of  nationality  which 

none  could  help  admiring.     Such  was  Corfu  in  war  time. 

It  was  extraordinary  how  even  in  Corfu  the  old  dread 

of   the   Turks  and  their  methods  of  warfare   prevailed. 

One   poor   young   fellow,  the   son   of   the    innkeeper   at 

Skripero,  a  charming  little  Corfiote  village,  all  embosomed 

in  a  forest  of  olives,  blew  out  his  brains  rather  than  trust 

himself  to  the  mercies  of  the  terrible  Turks.     He  and  a 

number  of  wounded  comrades  were  lying  on  the  field  of 

battle  ;  and,  as  they  lay  there  helplessly,  the  victors  came 

round   and   smashed   in    the    heads    of    their    prostrate 

enemies  one  after  the  other.     The  young  Corfiote  knew 

that  his  turn  would  come  soon,  so  he  begged  his  wounded 

neighbour  to   shoot  him  first.     The  latter   shrank  from 

taking  the  life  of   his  companion-in-arms,  and  refused. 

"Then,"  said  the  other,   "give  me  your  rifle,  and  I  will 

do  it   myself,"   and  to    this    pitiful    appeal    his    comrade 

226 


in   the   Near   East 

yielded.  No  wonder  that  the  people  here  regard  the 
Turks  with  horror,  although  the  Ionian  Islands,  more 
happy  than  all  Continental  Greece,  have  never  known 
the  direct  rule  of  the  Ottoman.  Thrice  did  the  Corfiotes 
and  their  Venetian  masters  drive  back  the  full  tide  of 
Turkish  invasion,  and  the  famous  repulse  of  the  Musul- 
mans  in  1716,  when  even  the  women  and  priests  fought 
in  the  defence  of  their  beloved  island,  is  still  kept  in  the 
memory  of  the  inhabitants  by  the  fine  statue  of  Marshal 
Von  der  Schulenburg,  a  German  soldier,  who  commanded 
the  garrison  on  that  occasion,  and  who  still  stands  in 
marble  on  the  Esplanade.  But  the  lonians  are  no  less 
zealous  against  the  Ottoman  foe  than  their  fellows  of  the 
mainland,  and  made  great  sacrifices  during  the  late 
struggle.  You  met  every  day  in  the  streets  peasants  who 
had  left  their  labour  in  the  vineyards  and  the  fields  for 
the  war,  and  who  had  been  awaiting  orders  from  x-^thens 
for  the  last  fortnight.  In  the  absence  of  the  regular 
authorities,  the  town  was  policed  by  special  constables, 
who  paraded  the  narrow  thoroughfares  and  winding 
Venetian  lanes  with  their  rifles,  presenting  a  very  un- 
military  appearance.  But  there  was  absolutely  no 
disorder,  and  the  only  quarrel  which  I  saw  was  between 
a  civilian  and  an  officer  who  resented  the  former's 
criticisms. 

To  see  the  town  of  Corfu  at  its  best  one  should  ascend 
the  old  fortress  built  by  the  Venetians,  and  still  bearing 
traces  of  the  lion  of  St.  Mark  upon  its  walls.  From  its 
ramparts  there  is  a  magnificent  view  in  every  direction, 
the  town  and  harbour  lie  at  one's  feet,  and  in  this  clear 
atmosphere  one  can  see  as  far  to  the  south  as  the  island 
of  Santa  Maura,  whence  Sappho  leaped  into  the  sea  for 
love  of  Phaon.  A  drive  to  Pantaleone  gives  one  a  grand 
view  of  the  interior  of  the  island,  with  its  streams  in 
which  the  Corfiote  maidens  are  washing   their   clothes, 

227 


Travels  and   Politics 

and  its  high  mountains,  only  broken  by  the  swampy 
plain  in  the  centre,  which  a  patriotic  Corfiote  has  left 
money  to  drain.  But  of  all  excursions  in  the  island,  the 
finest  is  that  to  the  monastery  of  Palaeokastrizza,  on  the 
west  coast.  A  more  heavenly  situation  was  never  chosen 
by  monks  for  the  site  of  their  earthly  abode.  We  drove 
for  fourteen  miles  through  a  forest  of  olives— for  in  Corfu 
the  olive  is  a  forest  tree — amid  the  aromatic   odours  of 


"A   HUMBLE   IIAK,    .    .    .    SUPPORTED   OX   WHITEWASHED   PILLARS." 
(From  a  Photo,  by  Mr.  C.  A.  Miller.) 

countless  flowers  and  shrubs.  Here  and  there  a  humble 
han,  or  roadside  inn,  supported  on  whitewashed  pillars, 
like  a  miniature  temple  of  some  heathen  divinity,  gleamed 
out  from  the  green  olive  leaves,  and  the  landlord  would 
hasten  to  stop  our  carriage,  not  to  offer  us  coffee,  or 
inasticha,  or  ginger  beer,  that  curious  relic  of  the  English 
days  in  the  Ionian  Islands,  but  to  ask  us  for  the  latest 
news  of  the  war.     Was  it  true,  as  the  false  but  flattering 

228 


in   the   Near   East 

rumour  had  it,  that  Joannina  had  fallen  before  the  Greeks, 
that  the  hero  Smolenski  had  won  a  great  victory,  that 
Edhem  Pasha  was  meditating  a  retreat  ?  No  ;  it  was  not, 
but  the  Greeks  are  a  sanguine  people,  and  their  news- 
papers pander  to  the  national  and  not  unnatural  desire 
to  believe  what  is  favourable.  So  we  stopped  at  every 
halting  place  on  the  road,  to  allow  our  driver  the  luxury 
of  talking  politics  and  discussing  the  latest  telegrams  with 
his  friends,  and  it  was  nearly  three  hours  before  the  azure 
blue  sea  in  front  of  us  indicated  the  proximity  of  the 
monastery.  Along  rocky  bays,  with  here  and  there  a  spit 
of  white  sand  which  invited  a  sea  bath,  and  up  a  steep 
ascent  we  drove  until  we  pulled  up  at  the  door  of  the 
convent  on  the  top  of  a  narrow  peninsula.  A  pleasant- 
looking  monk,  Gregorios  by  name  and  second  in 
command  to  the  Jicgo/niiciios  of  the  monastery,  received 
us  at  the  entrance,  and  in  a  mixture  of  Italian  and  Greek 
bade  us  enter.  Luncheon  we  had  brought  with  us  to 
our  great  regret,  for  Gregorios  eloquently  depicted  the 
resources  of  the  monastic  kitchen  and  cellar,  which  he 
offered  to  place  at  our  disposal.  But  we  gladly  availed 
ourselves  of  the  table  in  a  corner  of  the  courtyard  to 
which  he  escorted  us.  We  sat  down  at  his  bidding 
beneath  a  loggia,  from  which  we  could  see  the  blue  waves 
of  the  Ionian  sea  sparkling  in  the  sunlight  far  below  us. 
Out  in  the  bay  a  huge  rock  rose,  like  some  marine 
monster,  from  the  waters  ;  on  the  hills  to  the  right  and 
left  of  us  two  ruined  fortresses  added  charm  to  the  land- 
scape. But  no  fortress  ever  occupied  a  more  picturesque 
position  than  the  monastery  of  Palaeokastrizza  itself, 
which,  as  its  name  implies,  was  in  its  time  an  "ancient 
castle."  An  old  Venetian  cannon  is  all  that  now  remains 
of  its  warlike  panoply  ;  but  in  the  days  of  medicneval 
warfare  the  rocky  peninsula  on  w^hich  it  stands  must  have 
been  well-nigh  impregnable. 

229 


Travels  and  Politics  in  the  Near  East 

The  monks,  twelve  in  number,  looked,  indeed,  with  the 
exception  of  Gregorios  and  the  venerable  abbot,  like  wild 
men  of  the  woods,  with  their  long,  shaggy,  raven  locks, 
their  unkempt  beards,  and  their  miserable  raiment,  green 
with  age  and  dirt.      After  luncheon  Gregorios  took   us 
into  the  reception  room  of  the  hegoumenos,  a  small  but 
comfortable  apartment,  the  walls  of  which  were  covered 
with  roughly  coloured  pictures  of  Mount  Athos  and  the 
environs   of   Jerusalem,  and    the    portraits    of    reigning 
European  sovereigns,  not  excluding  the  Sultan  of  Turkey. 
From  his  cell,  which  opened  out  of  this  apartment,  the 
abbot  came  forth  to  greet  us  and  bid  us  welcome  to  the 
convent.     In  the  summer,  it  seems,  the  Corfiotes  come 
here  for  the  sea-bathing  in  considerable  numbers,  and  an 
English  artist  told  me  that  he  spent  several  nights  in  the 
guest-chamber  of  the  monastery,  for,  like  most   of   the 
Greek   convents,  this    is   an    inn  as  well  as   a   place   of 
devotion.     But  my  artist  friend   did  not   find   that   the 
worthy  monks  practised  that  virtue  which  is  said  to  be 
next  to  godliness,  and  he  accordingly  made  a  practice  of 
washing  up  his  own  plates  and  dishes  after  every  meal, 
so  as  to  ensure  their  cleanliness.     Down   in  an  arched 
passage   below   the   guest-chambers    the    mules    of    the 
convent  were  standing,  as  we  descended,  laden  with  skins 
of  wine,  which   is  here    permitted  to  retain    its    natural 
flavour,    without    being    embittered    by    the   addition    of 
resin,   as   in    Continental    Greece.      After   many   heroic 
attempts  I  have  never  succeeded  in  swallowing  a  glass  of 
retsiiidto  without  pulling  a  wry  face,  for  to  the  toreigner's 
palate   no   medicine   could  be  more  horrible   than   this 
national    drink.     No    wonder   that    they    have    so    little 
drunkenness  in  Greece  when  their  most  popular  beverage 
is  so  inexpressibly  nasty.     The  importation  of   retsiiidto 
into    England    might,    if   its    consumption    w^ere    made 
compulsory,  obviate  the  need  for  any  temperance  legisla- 

231 


Travels  and   Politics 

tion.  Even  the  most  brackish  of  water  is  more  appetising 
than  the  best  of  this  resinous  wine. 

When  we  had  seen  the  httle  church  of  the  convent, 
Gregorios  asked  if  we  would  give  him  a  seat  in  our 
carriage  back  to  Corfu,  as  he  had  some  purchases  to 
make  in  that  town.  Thanking  us  for  our  ready  assent  by 
the  customary  sign  of  touching  his  breast  with  his  right 
hand,  the  good  monk  went  off  to  put  on  his  best  robes, 
and  then  seated  himself  in  our  vehicle  wath  many  polite 
remarks.  On  the  way  back  he  told  us  the  simple  story  of 
his  life.  He  said  that  he  was  forty-seven  years  old,  and 
had  passed  twenty-two  of  them  at  the  monastery,  which 
he  had  entered  when  a  young  man  of  five  and  twenty 
from  one  of  the  neighbouring  villages.  He  had  never 
been  out  of  the  island  in  his  life,  and,  like  most  of  the 
Greek  monks,  was  the  son  of  a  peasant.  Yet  he  was 
shrewd  enough  in  his  ideas,  and  possessed  some 
education,  for  he  knew  ancient  Greek  fairly  well.  He 
told  us,  too,  how  many  olive  trees  the  convent  owned, 
and  showed  us  how  to  distinguish  them  by  the  red  initial 
letters  and  the  cross  marked  on  each  tree,  according  to 
the  Corfiote  custom.  When  they  are  given  as  a  dowry, 
they  bear  the  lady's  name.  But  we  paid  rather  dearly  for 
the  pleasure  of  his  society  and  for  our  visit  to  the 
monastery,  for  that  night  our  sleep  was  broken  and  our 
limbs  lacerated  by  the  tiny  denizens  of  the  convent,  who 
had  transferred  their  affections  to  us.  I  agree,  as  a  rule, 
w^ith  the  Frenchman  who  said  under  similar  circum- 
stances— ce  ii'i'st  pels  la  piqiii'c,  clout  jc  iiic  plains,  c'cst  la 
promenaclc.  The  fleas  of  Palaeokastrizza  are  equally 
terrible,  whether  they  bite,  or  whether  they  simply  stroll 
over  the  body  of  their  victim. 

I  was  fortunate  enough  to  be  in  Corfu  on  Ascension 
Day,  and  to  witness  the  open-air  festival  which  is  held 
on  that  occasion  about  a  mile  outside  the  town.    The  spot, 

232 


in  the   Near   East 

which  is  not  very  far  from  the  King's  villa,  is  itself  called 
Aiidlipsis,  the  Greek  for  Ascension,  and  is  a  perfectly  ideal 
situation  for  a  celebration  of  this  kind.  Through  the 
olives  the  "countless  ripples"  of  the  blue  water  glistened 
in  the  sun,  just  as  they  did  in  the  days  of  Aeschylus, 
while  on  the  greensward  beneath  the  trees  the  Corfiote 
peasants  stood  in  laughing  groups,  or  reclined  at  their 
ease.  From  Santi  Deca,  from  Benizze,  from  all  the 
straggling  white  villages  of  the  island,  and  even  from  the 
treeless  mountains  of  the  inhospitable  mainland,  they  had 
come  to  this  annual  gathering.  Unluckily,  the  badness 
of  the  crops  had  led  many  of  them  to  pawn  their  finery, 
but  still  there  were  not  a  few  smart  dresses  to  be  seen,  the 
brides  being  especially  gorgeous.  Their  hair  was  tied  up 
in  bands,  and  on  the  right  side  of  the  head  they  wore  a 
huge  bunch  of  artificial  flowers ;  every  ring  that  they 
could  muster  gleamed  on  their  fingers,  and  their 
garments  were  a  marvel  of  bright  colours.  Conspicuous 
among  them  were  the  Albanian  women,  with  their  quaint 
metal  head-dresses,  like  coronets.  Of  actual  dancing 
there  was  less  than  in  more  prosperous  years  ;  but  one 
had  seen  quite  enough  to  give  one  an  idea  of  what  an 
ancient  Greek  paiicgvris  must  have  been. 

Cephalonia  is  a  great  change  after  Corfu.  Instead  of 
the  giant  olive-groves  of  the  Pha;akian  Island  one  has  a 
barren  expanse  of  mountain  swept  by  the  wind,  and 
almost  without  a  tree.  An  old  resident  told  me  that  in 
the  British  days  Cephalonia,  too,  boasted  its  forests,  for 
the  British  authorities  made  stringent  regulations  to  pre- 
vent the  ruthless  sacrifice  of  timber,  in  which  the  average 
Greek  indulges.  Whenever  the  Hellene  sees  a  tree  his 
one  desire  is  to  destroy  it,  and  every  year  the  shepherds 
of  Greece  set  fire  to  such  forests  as  remain.  This  habit 
and  the  ravages  of  the  War  of  Liberation  have  made 
modern  Greece,  with  one  or  two  exceptions,  a  land  with- 

233 


'^■f^^M 

1 

i 

1 

l-^^PiJi 

1  #• 

1 

^Br 

".        -'■^;.        : 

^ 

~^— ^^^H^Bi^^^^^^^^KMaiMaMB- .  ■ , 

'^1M 

L    1 

^ 

■  ;  ■■-.' 

TS"^ 

^ 

COKllOTE   WO.MAX. 


Travels  and  Politics  in  the  Near  East 

out  trees.  So  strong,  indeed,  is  this  sentiment  of  destruc- 
tion in  Cephalonia,  that  the  British  guardian  of  the  forests 
was  murdered  by  the  natives.  Nowadays  the  mountains 
which  surround  the  Bay  of  ArgostoH  have  broken  out  into 
patches  of  red  and  yellow,  and  look  as  if  they  had  con- 
tracted some  infectious  complaint.  But  in  spite  of  the 
unpleasant  impression  which  the  island  makes  upon  the 
traveller,  its  soil  produces  excellent  wine  which  fills  the 
enormous  cellars  of  Mr.  Toole.  These  cellars  contain 
huge  vats  of  wine,  much  of  which  is  sold  in  Western 
Europe  and  used  for  sacramental  purposes.  The  island 
possesses  a  great  natural  curiosity  in  the  sea-mills.  The 
sea-water  after  turning  the  wheels  disappears  in  the  rocky 
ground,  no  one  knows  whither.  The  British  endeavoured 
to  discover  the  secret  of  this  phenomenon  by  pouring 
large  quantities  of  oil  into  the  water,  and  searched  all 
round  the  coast  to  find  if  it  reappeared.  But  all  their 
efforts  were  in  vain,  and  since  that  time  nothing  further 
has  been  done  to  elucidate  the  mystery. 

Zante  is,  next  to  Corfu,  the  prettiest  of  the  Ionian 
Islands.  The  first  time  I  visited  it  was  in  the  year  after 
the  great  earthquake.  At  that  time  nothing  had  been 
done,  in  spite  of  the  large  sums  of  money  contributed  for 
the  purpose,  to  rebuild  the  fallen  houses.  When  I  landed 
I  found  that  the  poor  people  were  still  encamped  in  tents, 
or  in  rickety  shanties  made  of  boxes,  along  the  sea  front, 
while  a  most  appalling  stench  arose  from  what  might 
have  been  a  fine  promenade.  The  theatre  was  just  as  it 
had  been  shaken  by  the  earthquake,  the  stage  was  still 
standing,  but  the  whole  of  the  auditorium  was  in  ruins. 
Here  and  there,  in  the  main  street,  tottering  houses  were 
bolstered  up  by  beams,  or  held  together  by  iron  cranks. 
Talking  with  one  of  the  natives,  I  expressed  surprise  that 
the  town  of  Zante,  with  such  large  funds  at  its  disposal, 
had  not  been  promptly  restored.     My  informant  laughed 

235 


Travels  and  Politics  in  the  Near  East 

at  my  innocence,  and  told  me  that  the  committee  ap- 
pointed to  administer  the  rcHef  fund  had  applied  it  for 
the  benefit  of  the  ricli  inhabitants  first.  However,  on  a 
subsequent  visit,  four  years  later,  I  found  that  the  poor 
Zantiotes  had  at  last  been  provided  with  habitations,  and 
that  the  town  had  resumed  its  normal  appearance,  the 
theatre  alone  being  still  in  ruins.  The  old  Venetian  fort, 
on  a  hill  above  the  town,  which  is  of  considerable 
dimensions,  has  stood  these  shocks  much  better  than  the 
modern  buildings.  From  the  hill  one  sees  stretched  out 
before  one,  like  a  map,  the  green  plain  which  composes 
the  greater  part  of  the  island.  Nearly  all  the  flowers  that 
one  buys  in  the  Athens  market  come  from  Zante,  and  the 
currants  of  the  island  have  always  been  celebrated.  But 
nowadays  the  difficulty  is  that  Greece  produces  too  many 
currants  to  make  their  sale  profitable.  Every  year  fresh 
schemes  are  devised  for  preventing  this  over-production, 
and  during  the  King's  recent  tour  in  the  Peleponnesus, 
the  question  was  continually  brought  before  him.  Zante, 
however,  is  not  devoted  to  currants  alone  ;  it  is  remark- 
able for  its  European  culture.  The  town  possesses  an 
excellent  club  where  English  magazines  may  be  found, 
and  one  sees  Italian  newspapers  and  French  reviews  in 
the  shops.  It  has  also  produced  a  considerable  number 
of  political  celebrities.  The  present  Speaker  of  the  Greek 
Parliament  is  a  Zantiote ;  and  M.  Lombardos,  who  played 
a  very  prominent  part  in  the  anti-British  agitation  in  the 
Islands,  and  lived  to  be  the  "  father  "  of  the  Boiilc,  came 
from  this  island.  Here,  in  fact,  as  in  Corfu,  one  finds 
traces  of  the  old  Venetian  life,  which  disappear  as  soon 
as  we  have  crossed  the  narrow  strait  which  separates  the 
"  flower  of  the  Levant "  from  the  coast  of  the  Pelopon- 
nesus. 


2  ■',6 


CHAPTER  VII 

GREECE  :  THE  COUNTRY  AND  THE  CAPITAL 

MY  first  experience  of  the  Greek  mainland  was  at 
the  httle  port  of  Katakolo  in  the  Peloponnesus, 
just  opposite  Zante.  It  was  also  my  first  introduction 
to  that  remarkable  survival  of  the  barbarous  ages,  the 
Greek  country  inn.  In  respect  of  accommodation  for 
travellers  Greece,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  big  towns, 
is  still  in  much  the  same  condition  as  Turkey.  The 
traveller  is  provided  with  a  certain  amount  of  space 
in  which  to  get  such  repose  as  he  can,  but  is  expected  to 
bring  with  him  such  requisites  as  he  needs.  Even  food 
is  sometimes  not  provided  by  the  management,  which 
thinks  that  it  has  discharged  its  duties  as  a  caterer,  if  it 
has  furnished  the  guest  with  a  cup  of  Turkish  coffee  in 
the  morning.  Accordingly  after  several  da^^s  spent  in 
the  comfortable  hotels  of  Corfu  and  Zante,  and  the  neat 
cabins  of  the  Greek  coasting-steamers,  it  was  a  rude 
awakening  to  find  oneself  landed  and  stranded  at  Kata- 
kolo, at  ten  o'clock  at  night,  with  no  other  place  of  refuge 
in  prospect  than  the  miserable  shanty  which  called  itself 
the  inn  of  the  place.  Under  the  guidance  of  a  boatman, 
redolent  of  garlic,  my  companion  and  I  were  led  to  a 
barrack-like  building  of  wood,  two  stories  high,  with  a 
balcony  running  round  the  whole  of  the  first  floor.  The 
door  was  opened  by  a  woman,  who  told  us  that  we  could 
have  beds  for  the  night,  but  that  supper  and  breakfast 
were  out  of  the  question.     This  was  cheerful  intelligence, 

237 


Travels   and   Politics 

but  it  was  Hobson's  choice,  and  we  were  ushered  upstairs 
to  a  room  with  four  beds  in  it,  which  proved  to  be  the 
common  sleeping-place  of  any  wayfarers  who  might 
require  a  rest  for  the  night.  A  casual  inspection  of  the 
sheets  by  the  light  of  the  miserable  rushlight  which  was 
our  only  illumination,  proved  beyond  a  doubt  that  the 
beds  were  literally  alive,  while  the  rugs  which  covered 
the  beds  evidently  contained  lodgings  for  various  choice 
specimens  of  the  lower  insects.  Sleeping  in  bed  was  out 
of  the  question,  so  we  wrapped  ourselves  in  our  over- 
coats and  endeavoured  to  court  repose  as  best  we  could. 
But  scarcely  had  we  composed  ourselves  to  rest  than  a 
loud  knocking  at  the  bedroom  door  proclaimed  the 
advent  of  another  guest,  and  in  spite  of  protestations  and 
remonstrances,  we  found  that  a  Greek  priest  of  unkempt 
locks  and  unwashed  appearance  was  to  share  our  bed- 
room for  the  night.  The  holy  father  had  no  scruples 
about  his  bedding,  and  before  long  he  was  snoring  on  his 
pallet,  while  we  were  longing  for  the  approach  of  dawn, 
and  mourning  the  absence  of  a  packet  of  Keating.  But 
the  attacks  of  our  winged  and  unwinged  enemies  were 
not  the  only  unpleasant  incidents  of  the  night.  A  crowd 
of  boatmen  collected  on  the  verandah  outside  our 
window  and  talked  for  an  hour  together  ;  and  when  a 
Greek  talks  it  is  at  the  top  of  his  voice.  Then  the  packs 
of  dogs,  with  which  every  Greek  village  is  infested,  began 
to  bark  in  chorus,  and  the  whole  township  appeared  to  be 
running  up  and  down  the  wooden  staircase  past  our 
room.  Sleep  came  at  last,  but  when  we  awoke  in  the 
morning  we  found  that  we  had  been  almost  devoured  by 
mosquitoes  and  our  uneasy  little  bed-fellows,  and  our  cup 
of  sorrow  was  full  when  we  discovered  that  there  was  only 
one  jug  of  water  for  washing  between  ourselves  and  the 
priest,  and  that  that  jug  was  half  empty  ! 

From   Katakolo   it   is   only  a  short  railway  journey  to 

238 


in  the   Near  East 

Olympia,  and  every  one  who  goes  to  Greece  goes,  as  a 
matter  of  course,  to  see  the  historic  scene  of  the  old 
Olympic  games.  Of  the  racecourse,  where  every  four 
years  the  athletes  of  Hellas  were  wont  to  compete,  little 
is  left  except  the  low  wall  which  marked  the  starting 
point  and  the  broken  pillar  which  served  as  the  goal,  and 
which  we  found  lying  in  the  middle  of  a  large  field, 
which  a  picturesquely  clad  peasant  was  ploughing  with  a 
somewhat  remarkable  team,  composed  of  an  ox  and  a 
mule  yoked  together.  But  the  boxing-ground  is  in  good 
preservation,  and  you  can  still  see  the  pavement  of  the 
famous  "ring"  where  the  Corbetts  and  Mitchells  of 
antiquity  strove  together.  A  great  number  of  pillars  and 
many  statues  from  the  temples,  which  once  stood  on  the 
spot,  have  been  excavated,  and  the  museum  which  an 
Athenian  banker  has  generously  built  for  the  purpose  is 
full  of  some  of  the  choicest  specimens  of  ancient  art.  I 
could  not  help  feeling  surprised,  however,  that  strangers 
are  allowed  to  walk  about  the  ruins  without  a  guide,  and 
indeed  without  inspection  of  any  kind.  At  Pompeii  no 
one  is  permitted  to  enter  the  excavations  without  the 
presence  of  an  official,  and  at  Delphi  I  w^as  informed  that 
I  could  not  even  photograph  the  remains.  Considering 
how  valuable  the  fragments  at  Olympia  are,  it  certainly 
seems  rather  careless  to  allow  any  one  and  every  one  to 
walk  about  among  the  fallen  pillars  and  ruined  temples 
without  the  slightest  supervision.  The  authorities  surely 
are  not  of  the  opinion  of  the  Roman  general,  who,  old 
Philistine  that  he  was,  told  his  men  that  if  they  injured 
any  of  the  ancient  statuary,  which  they  were  transporting, 
they  must  replace  it  by  new.  The  place,  as  I  saw  it, 
looked  the  perfection  of  an  old  ruined  precinct.  Trees 
were  growing  between  the  stones,  and  the  air  was  per- 
fumed with  the  scent  of  hawthorn  and  wild  thyme,  while 
among    the    currant-fields   which    fill    the   valley  of   the 

239 


Travels  and   Politics 

Alpheus,  the  chattering  magpies  were  flying  to  and  fro, 
Hzards  of  metalHc  hues  kept  darting  in  and  out  of  the 
crevices  in  the  stones,  and  in  the  stream  below  the  frogs 
were  croaking  in  a  way  which  reminded  one  of  the 
famous  frog  chorus  in  the  play  of  Aristophanes.  The 
Greek  frog  has  one  national  peculiarity,  he  always  ex- 
presses his  views  at  the  top  of  his  voice,  and  in  the 
evening  the  plain  of  Olympia  resounds  with  his  raucous 
music. 

The  railway  from  Olympia  to  the  Pira3us  is  the  longest 
which  Greece  possesses,  and  except  as  regards  speed  is 
an  excellent  line.  Greece  has  now  591  miles  of  railway. 
The  railway  carriages  are  well-appointed,  with  com- 
fortable seats  and  plenty  of  light  and  air  ;  the  fares  are 
reasonable  and  the  officials  most  polite.  The  train  only 
travels  about  fifteen  miles  an  hour,  and  stops  at  most  of 
the  stations,  but  when  one  wants  to  see  the  country  the 
slow  train  has  its  advantages.  At  all  the  larger  stations 
the  same  curious  scene  presents  itself.  There  are  all  the 
typical  figures  of  the  modern  Greek  nation  on  the  plat- 
form— the  priest  with  his  high  coif  and  long  black  robe, 
the  swarm  of  merry  little  shoe-blacks  with  their  blacking 
brushes  and  boxes  slung  over  their  arms  and  ready  to  act 
as  porters  for  the  travellers  at  the  slightest  sign  of  assent. 
All  sorts  and  conditions  of  hawkers  parade  the  platform, 
selling  lottery  tickets,  sweetmeats,  newspapers,  and  even 
stockings.  Then  there  are  one  or  two  soldiers  armed  to 
the  teeth,  for  the  military  are  much  in  evidence  in 
modern  Greece,  and  a  band  of  peasants  in  their  quaint 
dress.  At  all  the  small  roadside  stations  the  costumes 
of  the  people  are  still  more  picturesque,  and  as  you 
approach  Patras  the  train  is  literally  boarded  by  commis- 
sionaires and  touts  long  before  it  has  stopped  at  the 
platform.  So  a  railway  journey  in  Greece  has  distinctive 
features  of  its  own,  but  the  politeness  and  attention  of 

240 


in   the   Near   East 

the  officials,  who  never  worry  the  foreign  traveller  with 
unnecessary  regulations,  as  in  some  parts  of  the  Con- 
tinent, make  it  very  pleasant.  It  is  astonishing  how  well 
the  Greek  railway  men  can  talk,  and  I  shall  never  forget 
the  way  in  which  the  stationmaster  at  the  little  town  of 
Aigion  described  to  me  the  political  situation  in  the 
Balkan  Peninsula  in  the  most  fluent  French  and  with  an 
amount  of  information  and  common  sense  which  some 
statesmen  might  have  envied. 

Patras  is  the  largest  town  in  the  Peloponnesus  and  the 
third  in  the  whole  countrv,  and  does  a  good  business  in 
currants  and  wine.  One  passed  in  the  train  through 
hundreds  of  currant-tields,  for  this  is  the  favourite  district 
of  that  miniature  grape.  The  wine  of  Patras,  too,  is  of  a 
superior  quality,  and  the  German  company  which  intro- 
duced the  Teutonic  method  of  viticulture  here  has  been 
very  successful,  and  in  one  year  sent  about  2,000,000 
litres  out  of  the  place.  As  the  port  through  which  most 
Western  travellers  pass  on  their  way  to  or  from  Greece, 
Patras  has  additional  commercial  importance,  though 
it  is  now  behind  the  Piraeus  in  this  respect.  1  saw  it 
at  its  best  during  the  Exhibition  of  Greek  Industries  this 
year,  when  the  King  was  staying  there,  and  the  whole 
town  was  one  mass  of  bunting  in  his  honour.  But  there 
was  none  of  the  enthusiasm  which  in  many  countries 
follows  the  steps  of  a  sovereign  in  a  provincial  town. 
Five  splendid  cvzoiwi,  or  soldiers  of  the  guard,  clad  in 
spotless  petticoats,  were  drawn  up  outside  the  royal 
mansion,  forming  a  strange  contrast  with  the  small  and 
shabbily-dressed  soldiers  of  the  ordinary  regiments,  who 
stood  beside  them.  But  there  was  no  sound  of  any  kind 
from  the  small  crowd,  which  had  collected  to  see  the 
King  go  out  for  his  afternoon  drive.  There  was,  indeed, 
nothing  majestic,  except  the  stalwart  cvzonos  on  the  box 
of  the  royal  carriage,  about  the  undersized  man  in  naval 

241  R 


Travels  and   Politics 

uniform  who  drove  through  the  streets.  Even  less  king- 
hke  did  he  look,  when  in  the  evening  he  strolled  along 
the  quay  to  meet  the  Queen,  wlio  arrived  by  train  from 
Athens.  Yet  there  was  something  pleasant  in  the  evident 
delight  of  the  two  to  see  one  another,  and  the  palace  that 
evening  presented  the  spectacle  of  quite  a  family  party,  in 
which  the  pet  dog,  which  came  down  the  stairs  to  meet 
the  King  and  waited  to  be  patted  bv  his  majesty,  played 
a  homely  part.  How  different,  we  thought,  from  the 
scenes  of  the  previous  year,  when  the  King  had  had  little 
time  for  this  quiet  family  life  ! 

The  Greek  Church  has  always  played  such  an  im- 
portant part  in  the  national  life,  and  the  Greek  convents 
of  the  Levant  have  exercised  such  a  remarkable  fascina- 
tion over  the  imagination  of  Western  travellers,  that  I 
was  anxious  to  visit  the  most  typical  of  them.  In  Greece 
itself,  it  is  true,  these  institutions  are  no  longer  so  nume- 
rous as  they  once  were,  and  it  is  outside  the  boundaries 
of  the  Hellenic  Kingdom,  on  Mount  Athos,  that  the 
system  is  to  be  found  in  all  its  primitive  perfection. 
Under  the  presidency  of  Capodistrias  in  1829,  a  measure 
somewhat  similar  to  that  adopted  in  England  under 
Henry  VIII.  was  passed,  and  a  number  of  the  smaller 
monasteries  were  disestablished  and  disendowed.  Ac- 
cording to  the  latest  figures  available,  there  are  now  161 
monasteries  and  nunneries,  all  belonging  to  the  Order  of 
St.  Basil,  but  differing  entirely  from  one  another,  accord- 
ing as  they  are  administered  on  socialistic  or  indivi- 
dualistic principles.  There  are  monasteries  the  inmates 
of  which  share  all  their  worldly  possessions  in  common, 
and  receive  their  food  and  clothing  out  of  this  common 
fund,  managed  by  the  abbot,  or  liegouiiieiios.  In  other 
convents,  again,  the  monks  retain  their  own  money,  are 
the  proprietors  of  pieces  of  land,  which  they  cultiv"ite 
as  they  please,  and  enjoy  the  right  of  bequeathing  their 

242 


in  the  Near  East 

property  to  their  attendants.  They  elect  their  own 
officers,  who  are  called  cpitropoi,  and  generally  exercise 
the  privileges  of  freemen. 

The  convent  of  Megaspelaion  is  the  largest  in  all 
Greece,  and  was  founded  six  centuries  ago.  The  ap- 
proach to  it  was  until  quite  recently  attended  with  such 
difficulties  that  few  foreigners,  except  pilgrims,  ever  set 
foot  in  it.  It  lies  up  a  wild  and  savage  gorge,  through 
which  a  mountain  torrent  forces  its  way  down  to  the 
southern  shore  of  the  Gulf  of  Corinth.  But  in  1889 
a  mountain  railway  on  the  Abt  system  was  begun  at 
Diakopto,  a  station  on  the  line  between  Patras  and 
Corinth,  and  was  completed  as  far  as  the  little  town 
of  Kalavryta  in  1894.  The  line,  which  may  be  called 
the  Rigi  of  Greece,  seeing  that  it  is  the  only  railway 
on  the  cogwheel  principle  in  the  whole  country,  was 
estimated  to  cost  ^^'i 5,000,  but  as  a  matter  of  fact  has 
cost  over  -^'69,500,  and  involved  the  original  contractor 
in  bankruptcy.  No  one  who  uses  it  can  wonder  at  the 
enormous  expense  involved,  although  the  distance  from 
Diakopto  to  the  other  terminus  is  little  over  ten  miles  ; 
for  the  number  of  bridges  and  tunnels  is  very  consider- 
able, the  gradients  are  steep  in  places,  and  the  narrow 
gorges  through  which  the  train  passes  are  almost  barri- 
caded by  huge  boulders  of  rock,  which  had  to  be  blasted 
by  dynamite.  Scenery  such  as  even  Switzerland  or  the 
Tyrol  can  hardly  surpass  unfolds  itself  as  the  traveller 
advances,  and  when  the  train  stops  at  the  little  station 
of  Zachlorou  for  the  monastery,  after  a  steep  climb  of 
nearly  two  hours,  the  foreigner  has  seen  some  of  the 
wildest  and  grandest  country  of  the  Peloponnesus. 
Zachlorou,  usually  the  quietest  spot  on  earth,  was  all 
animation  when  we  arrived.  For  a  wounded  soldier, 
a  native  of  the  place,  was  in  the  train,  and  the  whole 
village  had  turned  out   at   the  station  to  welcome   the 

243 


Travels  and  Politics 

warrior  back  from  the  war.  It  was,  indeed,  a  picture 
to  see  the  people  crowd  around  him,  some  grasping 
his  unwounded  hand,  others  kissing  his  cheeks,  and  all 
hanging  on  his  lips,  so  as  not  to  lose  a  single  word 
that  fell  from  him.  Then  and  there,  on  the  platform, 
they  all  sat  down  and  listened  open-mouthed  to  his 
descriptions  of  the  battles  in  which  he  had  fought. 
Even  the  budget  of  Athenian  newspapers  which  had 
arrived  with  the  train  proved  a  less  attraction  than  this 
eye-witness  of  the  great  national  conflict.  When  we 
left  with  our  mule  and  Vemo,  our  guide,  for  the 
monastery,  the  soldier  was  still  holding  his  audience 
entranced  with  his  story. 

A  steep  and  winding  path  leads  up  from  the  station  to 
the  monastery,  which  is  built,  as  its  name,  Megaspelaion, 
or  "the  great  cave,"  implies,  into  a  huge  cave  in  the  sheer 
face  of  the  cliff.  From  below  it  looks  like  a  row  of 
swallows'  nests  perched  above  an  immense  wall,  which 
forms  the  basis  of  the  structure,  and  the  birds  which 
fly  in  and  out  of  the  rocks  in  great  numbers  appear 
to  be  its  inhabitants.  The  lower  portion  consists  of 
storehouses  and  cellars  stocked  with  wine-casks  of 
gigantic  proportions,  which,  like  the  mammoth  tuns  in 
the  Rathskeller  at  Bremen,  have  names  of  their  own,  and 
date  in  some  cases  from  the  last  century.  Above  the 
wall  are  the  cells  and  oratories  of  the  monks,  of  whom 
there  are  between  two  and  three  hundred  altogether.  A 
quaint  belfry  occupies  the  centre  of  the  building,  the  top 
of  which  mainly  consists  of  the  cavern  roof.  As  soon  as 
we  entered  the  precincts  of  the  convent  our  guide  took 
off  his  cap  and  stopped  his  mule's  bell,  and  inside  the 
gate  the  xcnodSchos,  or  brother,  whose  duty  it  is  to 
receive  and  entertain  strangers,  led  us  to  our  room  in 
a  sort  of  inn.  No  charge  is  made  for  bed  and  board, 
but  the  traveller  is  expected  to  give  according   to    his 

244 


in  the  Near  East 

means,  placing  his  offering  in  a  box  or  handing  it  to 
the  xeiiodSclios  on  his  departure.  The  accommodation, 
if  not  kixLirioLis,  is  at  any  rate  superior  in  cleanHness 
to  that  of  the  average  Greek  or  Turkish  han.  The 
beds,  it  is  true,  were  mere  planks  laid  on  trestles,  and 
covered  with  bright-coloured  rugs.  But,  in  spite  of  their 
hardness,  they  were  free  from  vermin,  to  our  great  sur- 
prise, while  the  convent  fare  was  better  than  we  had  been 
led  to  expect.  The  inevitable  lamb  made  its  ungarnished 
appearance,  of  course,  and  the  wine  was  resinous  to  the 
last  degree.  But  the  eggs  were  excellent,  and  our  good 
host,  the  xeiiodochos,  and  his  satellites  unremitting  in  their 
attentions  to  us.  In  the  evening  we  all  sat  by  the  glowing 
fire  of  logs  in  the  kitchen  and  discussed  the  war,  in  which 
the  monks  were  deeply  interested,  over  our  coffee  and 
cigarettes.  Bartholomaos  (such  was  the  name  of  the 
xeiiodochos)  was  overjoyed  at  the  enamelled  Greek  flag 
which  my  wife  was  wearing — for  ladies  are  admitted 
as  guests  to  this  monastery — and  immensely  gratified 
at  the  cigarettes  which  I  gave  him.  It  was  rather 
comical  to  find  him  addressing  me  after  such  a  brief 
acquaintance  by  my  Christian  name,  Gulielmos,  as  if  I 
too  were  one  of  the  monks.  He  and  another  monk, 
named  Zacharias,  kept  digging  me  on  the  shoulders, 
one  on  either  side,  to  emphasise  their  views  on  the  war, 
while  two  small  youths  who  were  scholars  at  the  convent 
school,  watched  us  open-mouthed,  and  seized  every  avail- 
able excuse  of  examining  all  our  belongings.  What 
pleased  Bartholomaos  most  was  a  map  of  Greece  which 
I  had  with  me,  for  this  afforded  him  the  puerile  delight 
of  picking  out  the  places  of  which  he  had  heard  or  read. 

In  the  morning  he  showed  us  the  chapel,  which  con- 
tains, in  addition  to  some  quaint  Byzantine  work,  a  wax 
figure  of  the  Virgin,  piously  believed  to  be  the  handi- 
work of  St.  Luke.      The  most  interesting  feature  of  the 

245 


Travels  and   Politics 

library  was  a  splendid  firman  of  the  Sultan  Selim  III., 
who  gave  the  monks  a  number  of  privileges  during  the 
Turkish  occupation  of  the  Morea,  for  which  they  natur- 
ally paid  very  dearly.  But  perhaps  the  price  was  not  too 
high,  seeing  that  one  of  their  stipulations  was  the  exclusion 
of  Turkish  visitors.  Even  to  this  day  they  go  through  the 
formula  of  disarming  every  armed  traveller  at  the  door — a 
curious  relic  of  the  days  when  brigands  roamed  the  Pelo- 
ponnesus. Yet  their  favoured  condition  under  the  Turkish 
rule  did  not  prevent  them  from  welcoming  with  enthusiasm 
the  outbreak  of  the  war  which  gave  Greece  her  indepen- 
dence. It  was  within  these  walls  that  the  authors  of  that 
movement  laid  their  plans  ;  and  it  was  from  these  gates 
that  the  Archbishop  Germanos  sallied  forth  in  April,  182 1, 
to  raise  the  standard  of  revolt  at  the  neighbouring  monas- 
tery of  Lavra,  where  it  was  once  more  unfurled  at  the 
beginning  of  the  late  war.  Furious  at  this  action  of  the 
monks,  Ibrahim  Pasha  laid  siege  to  Megaspelaion,  but  in 
vain.  Brother  Bartholomaos  showed  us  the  spot  whence 
the  Turks  had  hurled  down  rocks  and  trees  upon  the 
convent.  But  the  sheer  cliffs  sheltered  it  from  the 
missiles  of  the  enemy,  and  the  monks  maintained  a 
vigorous  cannonade  from  the  front  of  the  monastery, 
with  the  result  that  their  assailants  were  repulsed.  A 
cannon  and  a  cross  on  the  rocks  above  still  serve  as 
memorials  of  that  victory  over  the  Crescent,  and  may 
console  the  inmates  for  the  recent  defeats  of  the  Hellenic 
arms.  And  so,  with  a  last  look  at  the  gateway  of  the 
convent,  on  one  side  of  which  a  Greek  inscription  tells 
how  the  two  Kings  of  Greece,  Otho  and  George,  both 
visited  the  monastery,  we  quitted  Megaspelaion  and  the 
Middle  Ages  for  the  railway  and  the  nineteenth  century. 

I  have  seldom  seen  a  rougher  or  wilder  set  of  men  than 
the  steerage  passengers  on  the  little  ship  by  which  I  sailed 
down  the  Gulf  of  Corinth  for  Delphi.      I  looked  down 

246 


in   the   Near   East 

from  the  bridge  of  the  Prince  George,  whither  the  captain 
had  invited  me,  npon  a  crowd  of  Albanian  and  -^toHan 
mountaineers  lying  asleep  in  their  rough  frieze  coats  on 
the  deck  below,  huddled  up  together  like  so  many  sacks. 
They  were  migrating  with  their  belongings,  most  of  which 
they  carried  on  their  backs,  from  one  end  of  the  Gulf  to 
the  other,  and  they  presented  an  extraordinary  contrast  to 
the  more  polished  Greeks  on  board.  Parnassus  appeared, 
all  covered  with  snow,  as  we  approached  Itea,  the  landing- 
place  for  Delphi,  and  the  snow-white  peaks  of  the  moun- 
tains all  round  the  Gulf  stood  out  in  higli  relief  against  the 
deep-blue  sky  and  sea. 

A  very  remarkable  Eastern  institution  indeed  is  the 
native  saddle.  When  the  horse  upon  which  I  was  about 
to  ride  to  Delphi  was  brought  round  to  the  door  of  the 
hotel  at  Itea,  I  gazed  in  amazement  at  the  extraordinary 
edifice  of  wood  which  I  was  expected  to  bestride.  Instead 
of  the  neat  saddles  to  which  we  are  accustomed  in  England, 
my  steed  bore  upon  its  back  a  wooden  fj'ame  with  two 
big  pieces  of  the  same  material  projecting  in  front,  while 
this  peculiar  structure  was  covered  with  a  number  of  rugs 
and  cloths,  in  the  centre  of  which  I  ensconced  myself,  to 
the  satisfaction  of  an  admiring  crowd  of  bystanders.  But, 
once  in  the  saddle,  I  discovered  there  were  no  reins,  unless 
one  can  dignify  by  that  name  the  thick  iron  chain  with 
which  the  horse-boy  presented  me.  The  stirrups,  too, 
were  marvels  of  native  workmanship  ;  great  pieces  of 
iron  with  savage-looking  spurs  attached  to  them,  such  as 
one  sees  in  the  specimens  of  cavalry  equipment  of  the 
time  of  Cromwell.  The  Greek  cavaUeria  riisticaiia,  I 
notice,  usually  ride  side-saddle — men  quite  as  much  as 
women — and  that  is  the  most  comfortable  method  of 
horsemanship  under  these  novel  conditions.  As  your 
horse  never  by  any  chance  gets  beyond  a  gentle  trot, 
there  is  not  the  least  prospect  of  falling  off,  even  if  you 

247 


Travels  and   Politics 

sit  sideways  on  the  saddle  and  dangle  your  feet  in  front 
of  you.  But  when  once  we  had  begun  to  climb  the  steep 
slopes  of  Parnassus,  I  recognised  that  the  Greek  horse  is  a 


vfi 


m 


■a*^ 


DELPHI. 
{Fnvn  a  Pluitc.  bv  Mr.  C  A.  Miliar.) 


tirst-rate  mountain  climber,  and  picks  his  way  among  the 
rough  stones  and  boulders  with  the  most  marvellous  skill. 
Unfortunately  there  was  too  much  snow  on  the  famous 

248 


in  the  Near  East 

poetic  mountain  to  admit  of  our  ascending  to  the  summit 
— or  rather  summits,  for  there  are  five  separate  peaks  in 
all.  The  French  Government,  which  has  done  so  much 
for  archaeology  in  Greece,  has  purchased  the  houses  and 
site  of  the  little  village  of  Kastri,  which  has  grown  up  on 
the  ruins  of  ancient  Delphi.  The  whole  of  the  village  has 
been  pulled  down,  and  a  new  place  of  residence  has  been 
erected  on  the  other  side  of  the  hill  for  the  use  of  the 
evicted  inhabitants,  who  have  gained  in  every  way  by  the 
exchange.  The  genial  keeper  of  the  antiquities  took  me 
into  his  house  on  my  arrival,  and  after  giving  me  an 
excellent  glass  of  cognac,  kindly  dispatched  his  atten- 
dants, east  and  west,  and  south  and  north,  to  obtain  me 
a  lodging  for  the  night,  for  Delphi  had  then  no  inn.  The 
result  of  his  inquiries  was  most  satisfactor}^,  and  I  found 
myself  quartered  upon  a  hospitable  Delphian,  Basilis 
Paraskevas  by  name,  whose  cottage  contained  a  wooden 
partition  behind  which  the  guests  slept.  The  hens 
pecked  about  in  the  sitting-room,  and  the  water  for  wash- 
ing was  emptied  out  of  the  window,  but  the  place  was 
scrupulously  clean,  and  from  the  visitors'  book  which  lay 
on  the  table  I  learned  that  this  humble  roof  had  sheltered 
many  distinguished  Englishmen.  Among  other  entries 
I  noticed  an  autograph  signature  of  Mr.  Chamberlain, 
who,  accompanied  by  Mr.  Jesse  Collings,  had  come  up, 
it  seems,  to  consult  the  Delphic  oracle  in  November, 
1886,  after  the  defeat  of  the  first  Home  Rule  Bill.  What 
response  he  may  have  obtained  is  not  recorded,  but  it  is 
well  known  that  in  ancient  days  the  Pythian  priestess 
was  an  expert  in  the  science  of  political  meteorolog3\ 
Lord  Curzon's  name  also  figured  in  the  volume,  for  the 
new  Viceroy  of  India  made  an  exhaustive  tour  of  Greece 
some  years  ago.  The  size  of  his  retinue,  when  he  traversed 
Thessaly,  made  such  an  impression  on  the  unsophisticated 
natives,  that  they  believed  the  English  traveller  to  be  the 

249 


Travels  and   Politics 

Crown  Prince  of  Greece  on  his  honeymoon.  Students  of 
the  late  war  will  remember  that  the  Crown  Prince  travels 
with  large  quantities  of  luggage. 

One  could  not  iielp  feeling  a  little  disillusioned  with  the 
Castalian  spring,  in  which  the  visitors  to  the  shrine  were 
wont  to  dip  their  hands  before  consulting  the  oracle,  and 
which  has  been  sung  by  bards  innumerable.  When 
Cobden  visited  Athens  he  was  amused  to  see  the  Athenian 
washerwomen  ^washing  their  clothes  in  the  waters  of  the 
classic  Ilissus.  When  I  was  at  Delphi,  I  observed  the 
Delphic  laundresses  putting  the  fountain  of  Castalia  to  a 
similar  base  use.  But,  after  all,  they  must  wash  their 
things  somewhere,  and  it  is  certainly  better  that  the  water 
should  be  used  for  washing  than  for  drinking,  for  an 
English  gentleman  who  indulged  in  it  rather  toj  freely 
told  me  that  he  had  repented  of  his  hardihood  in  the 
midnight  watches. 

The  Gulf  of  Corinth  was  very  rough  indeed  as  we  sailed 
away  from  the  little  harbour  of  I  tea,  alongside  of  which  a 
troop  of  camels  was  drawn  up,  this  being  the  only  place 
in  Greece  where  they  are  seen.  It  was  only  when  we 
reached  the  canal  that  we  had  smooth  water.  The 
Corinth  canal  is  a  magnificent  piece  of  engineering.  It 
is  perfectly  straight  from  end  to  end,  and  you  can  see 
right  through  it  from  the  entrance.  Cut  through  high 
cliffs  of  sandstone  which  rise  like  enormous  walls  on 
either  side,  it  is  three  miles  and  a  half  in  length,  and  a 
hundred  feet  broad.  A  Greek  gentleman  on  board  the 
steamer  told  me  that  the  people  regretted  now  that  the 
canal  had  not  been  made  a  little  wider,  so  that  big  ve3sels 
and  men-of-war  could  go  through  it.  Our  steamer,  how- 
ever, which  was  of  a  fair  size,  found  plenty  of  space  to 
move,  although  there  was  a  barge  in  the  canal  at  the 
same  time.  The  footways  on  either  side  take  up  a  good 
deal  of  room,  and  one  of  thein   perhaps  might  be  cut 

250 


in   the  Near  East 

away.  The  canal,  although  it  has  been  opened  for  five 
years,  is  not  used  so  much  as  was  expected,  in  spite 
of  the  immense    saving  of  time  which  it  effects.      The 


THE   CORINTH   CAXAL. 
(Frow  a  Photo,  by  Mr.  C.  .i.  Miller.) 


dangerous  currents  and  the  high  tolls  charged  have 
proved  deterrents  to  the  traffic,  and  in  the  earlier  davs 
the  electric  lighting  along  the  cutting  was  not  always  in 

251 


Travels  and  Politics 

order.  There  is  nothing  new  under  the  sun,  so  that  one 
is  not  surprised  to  notice  at  the  entrance  an  ancient  tablet 
which  is  a  rehc  of  the  canal  which  the  Emperor  Nero 
began,  but  never  finished,  nearly  two  thousand  years 
before  the  present  work  was  completed. 

Of  all  places  in  Greece  with  a  great  past,  Corinth  is 
perhaps  the  most  disappointing.  The  ancient  town, 
which  nestled  at  the  foot  of  the  gigantic  citadel  of 
Akro-Corinth,  has  almost  entirely  disappeared.  A  few 
columns  of  an  old  temple  are  all  that  remains  to  mark 
the  site  of  what  was,  in  St.  Paul's  day,  the  most  luxurious 
city  of  Greece.  The  modern  town,  which  has  sprung  up 
three  miles  away,  is  a  growing  place  and  a  railway  junc- 
tion, but  has  nothing  interesting  about  it.  If,  as  some 
suggested  in  the  early  days  of  modern  Hellas,  it  had 
been  chosen  as  the  capital  of  the  Greek  kingdom,  it 
might  have  revived  some  at  least  of  the  ancient  glories 
of  the  isthmus.  Unless  destroyed  by  an  earthquake  such 
as  that  of  which  I  once  had  a  taste  here,  when  a  portion 
of  the  ceiling  fell  into  my  basin,  modern  Corinth  may 
develop  into  a  commonplace  edition  of  Patras.  But  of 
the  splendours  of  the  ancient  city  it  is  as  destitute  at 
present  as  are  the  modern  maidens  of  Corinth  of  that 
marvellous  beauty  for  which  the  frivolous  Corinthian 
ladies  were  famous  in  classical  times.  But  nothing  can 
detract  from  the  grandeur  of  the  majestic  mountain, 
which  stands  sublime,  the  natural  guardian  of  the 
isthmus  and  Peloponnesus.  The  ascent  of  Akro-Corinth, 
the  Rigi  of  Greece,  is  well  worth  the  time  that  it  takes. 
From  the  summit  of  that  ancient  fortress,  now  in  ruins,  I 
had  a  magnitient  view  of  the  "twin  seas" — the  Gulf  of 
Corinth  on  the  one  side,  and  the  blue  ^gean,  with  the 
islands  of  ^Egina  and  Salamis,  on  the  other.  Far  away 
in  the  distance,  I  could  descry  the  dazzling  white  front 
of  the   Royal   Palace  at  Athens  ;  for  in  this  clear  atmo- 

252 


in  the  Near  East 

sphere  it  is  possible  to  see  for  many  a  mile.  A  few 
roughly- clad  shepherds  were  pasturing  their  flocks  amid 
the  crumbling  walls  of  the  old  fortifications,  while  here 
and  there  a  rusty  cannon  lay  amid  the  asphodel  which 
covered  the  ground.  With  great  difficulty  I  discov^ered 
the  famous  spring  of  Pirene,  which  was  supposed  to  have 
flowed  out  of  the  living  rock  when  struck  by  the  hoof  of 
Pegasus.  A  wooden  ladder  leads  down  into  the  well,  the 
clear  water  of  which  is  festooned  with  maidenhair  fern. 
In  olden  times  the  spring  must  have  been  invaluable  to 
the  garrison  during  a  siege  ;  but  to-day  this  splendid 
natural  fortress — according  to  Colonel  Mure,  the  finest 
in  Europe — has  no  military  value,  and  is  completely 
neglected.  Even  during  the  late  war,  when  all  sorts  of 
wild  schemes  were  put  forward  for  the  defence  of  the 
country  after  the  Greek  army  fell  back,  no  one  suggested 
the  rehabilitation  of  Akro-Corinth. 

The  rocky  fortress  of  Nauplia,  which  is  easily  accessible 
by  rail  from  Corinth,  is  one  of  the  gems  of  Greece. 
Rising  above  the  town,  it  commands  a  splendid  view  of 
the  bay,  while  close  at  hand  is  the  classic  town  of  Argos, 
now  a  squalid  and  uninteresting  place,  and  the  remains  of 
Tiryns  and  Mycena3.  In  the  classics  Argos  is  described 
as  "  thirsty  "  and  as  "  the  mother  of  goodly  steeds."  I 
can  vouch  for  the  accuracy  of  the  former  epithet,  but  I 
was  unable  to  raise  even  the  poorest  hack  without  the 
utmost  difficulty.  But  by  a  curious  freak  the  Greeks  have 
converted  Palamidi,  the  Monaco  of  the  ^gean,  into  a 
gigantic  prison.  Nauplia,  originally  the  capital  of  the 
kingdom,  the  spot  where  Capodistrias  was  murdered,  has 
become  the  Portland  of  Greece.  We  climbed  up  the  867 
steps  which  lead  to  the  summit  of  the  castle,  and  saw  the 
prisoners  taking  their  morning  exercise  in  a  sort  of  cock- 
pit below.  The  instant  they  caught  sight  of  us,  they  held 
up  long  poles  with   small   boxes  on  the  end  containing 

253 


Travels  and  Politics 

trinkets  and  pieces  of  carving  which  they  had  manufac- 
tured in  their  prison  hours,  and  which  they  are  allowed 
to  sell  to  visitors  at  low  prices.  As  we  walked  round  the 
ramparts  above,  the  babel  of  tongues  which  arose  from 
below  was  simply  deafening.  Out  in  the  bay  the  little 
island  of  Bourzi  contains  a  solitary  prisoner  whom  we 
could  see  looking  from  the  bastions  of  his  prison  through 
a  spyglass.  The  prisoner  of  Bourzi  is  none  other  than 
the  Greek  executioner,  who,  when  not  professionally  en- 
gaged, spends  his  enforced  leisure  in  this  spot.  In  Greece, 
w^here  criminals  are  beheaded,  the  headsman  is  always  a 
criminal  who  has  been  condemned  to  death  himself,  and 
has  been  reprieved  on  condition  that  he  devotes  his  time 
to  the  task  of  cutting  off  his  fellow- criminals'  heads. 

It  was  a  pleasant  change  from  this  grim  scene  to  the 
little  town  of  Megara,  on  the  line  betw^een  Corinth  and 
Athens,  where  we  arrived  betimes  on  Easter  Tuesday,  to 
see  the  finest  dancing  that  Greece  can  show.  Megara 
was  en  fete  when  w'e  arrived,  for  the  Easter  dances  of 
the  Megarean  ladies  attract  visitors  from  all  parts  of 
Greece.  The  little  station  was  gaily  festooned  with  flags, 
the  Union  Jack  conspicuous  among  them,  and  the  half- 
ruined  town,  which  rises  on  two  low  hills  about  a  mile 
and  a  half  from  the  azure  blue  sea,  had  done  its  best  to 
make  itself  attractive.  In  the  small  square  the  humble 
restaurants  of  the  place  had  bedecked  themselves  with 
boughs  of  trees,  and  booths  of  green  twigs  had  been 
erected  in  front,  beneath  which  we  soon  ensconced 
ourselves,  and  made  up  for  the  loss  of  our  breakfast  by 
devouring  pieces  of  "Turkish  delight "^ — that  favourite 
sweetmeat  of  the  modern  Greek — ^and  drinking  glasses  of 
niasUcha  at  one  of  the  tables. 

About  ten  o'clock  a  general  movement  was  made  to  a 
large  open  space  on  the  side  of  a  hill  outside  the  town, 
and   by  this  time  a  large  number  of  spectators  had  col- 

254 


in   the   Near   East 

lected.  The  natives  turned  out  in  their  full  war-paint  in 
honour  of  the  occasion.  The  women  of  Megara  who 
were  to  take  part  in  the  dance  had  donned  the  beautiful 
national  costume,  which  is  now  being  gradually  displaced 
by  the  less  picturesque  garb  of  Western  Europe.  Some 
of  the  outfits  were  worth  as  much  as  £^o,  and  all  were 
exceedingly  handsome.  In  fact,  nowhere  can  the  full 
Greek  dress  be  seen  to  such  advantage  or  in  such  perfec- 
tion as  on  Easter  Tuesday  at  Megara.  The  Megarean 
ladies  wore  head-dresses  composed  entirely  of  gold  and 
silver  coins,  fastened  together  like  a  suit  of  mail,  with  a 
fringe  or  row  of  coins  across  the  forehead.  I  examined 
several  of  these  head-dresses,  and  noticed  that  most  of 
the  coins  were  very  old,  some  of  them  dating  from  the 
Turkish  occupation  of  the  country,  and  they  had  evi- 
dently been  kept  as  heirlooms  in  the  families  of  their 
respective  owners.  Over  this  metal  cap  was  thrown  a 
beautiful  veil  of  yellow  tint,  which  descended  down  the 
back  of  the  wearer.  The  jackets  of  the  dancers  were 
richly  embroidered  with  gold  lace,  and  the  aprons  they 
wore  were  marvels  of  artistic  ingenuity.  Many  of  the 
peasants,  I  was  told,  had  been  obliged  to  pawn  their 
trinkets  in  these  hard  times,  but  at  Megara  they  have 
evidently  been  able  to  preserve  their  ancient  heirlooms 
with  their  ancient  customs  intact.  As  for  the  men,  they 
were  all  wearing  their  snow-white  petticoats  and  hand- 
some tunics,  while  each  male  dancer  had  a  new  red  fez 
with  a  long  blue  tassel  on  his  head.  Altogether,  with  the 
brilliant  azure  sky  and  azure  sea  as  a  background, 
and  the  grey-green  olives  of  the  Megarean  plain  in 
front  of  us,  the  combination  of  colours  was  most  re- 
markable. 

The  dancing  was  in  the  open  air,  and  little  knots  of 
spectators,  several  armed  with  photographic  instruments, 
were  soon  collected  round  the  principal  performers.    The 

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dances  were  of  very  different  kinds,  but  all  distinguished 
by  the  slow  rhythmic  movement  which  the  Greeks  have 
always  preferred.  Megara  was  famous  of  old  as  the 
birthplace  of  the  comic  drama,  and  it  has  handed  down 
to  our  own  day  in  this  festival  an  almost  perfect  repre- 
sentation of  the  ancient  Pyrrhic  dance.  A  man,  dressed 
in  full  Greek  costume,  takes  a  handkerchief  in  one  hand 
while  he  raises  the  other  in  the  air.  A  line  of  ladies, 
varying  in  number  from  five  to  nine,  is  then  formed. 
Each  of  the  female  performers  takes  the  hand  of  the  lady 
next  to  her,  and  the  damsel  at  the  end  of  the  line  grasps 
the  handkerchief  proffered  her  by  the  man.  A  circle  is 
then  formed ;  the  musicians,  three  in  number — a  tiddler, 
a  gentleman  with  a  guitar,  and  another  with  a  flute — are 
posted  in  the  centre,  and  the  dance  begins.  The  most 
extraordinary  capers  are  cut  by  the  man,  who  conducts 
the  ladies  round  and  round,  while  their  steps  are  of  the 
most  stately  kind.  No  minuet  was  ever  more  solemn 
than  the  dances  of  the  IMegarean  maidens.  Another  item 
on  the  programme  was  a  dance  performed  by  two  long 
rows  of  ladies  who  faced  each  other  and  kept  moving 
backwards  and  forwards  with  slow,  measured  steps. 
Then  there  were  dances  of  men  alone,  and  dances  for  the 
children  of  the  place,  who  naturally  enjoyed  the  treat 
amazingly.  Meanwhile,  the  whole  population  of  Megara, 
about  six  thousand  in  number,  had  camped  out  on  the 
hillside  overlooking  Salamis  and  its  lovely  bay,  with 
angina  in  the  distance,  and  every  one  was  munching 
koloura,  or  Easter  cakes  with  scarlet-dyed  eggs  in  them, 
and  drinking  the  resined  wine  which  the  English  palate 
finds  so  trying.  It  was  a  striking  spectacle,  and  one  was 
able  to  answer  the  famous  query  of  Lord  Byron  :  "  Ye 
have  the  Pyrrhic  dances  yet ;  where  is  the  Pyrrhic 
phalanx  now  ? "  ¥ov  the  Pyrrhic  phalanx  was  there, 
too,  in  the  shape  of    the    Athens    Bicycle   Club,  whose 

256 


in  the   Near   East 

members  had  ridden  over  for  the  day,  and  were  drawn 
up  on  the  field  in  martial  array. 

I  have  seen  the  Greek  capital  under  three  very  different 
conditions — at  the  time  of  the  great  earthquakes,  during 
the  war,  and  in  the  quiet  season  of  rest  and  recuperation 
which  followed  that  struggle.  But  on  all  three  occasions 
the  city  had  some  permanent  characteristics.  One's  first 
and  last  impression  of  Athens  is  that  the  famous  "  city  of 
the  violet  crown  "  is  the  dustiest  capital  in  Europe. 
Clouds  of  dust  envelop  you  as  you  drive  up  from  the 
station  to  your  hotel,  and  the  first  person  whom  you  meet 
on  the  doorstep  is  a  functionary  armed  with  a  huge  feather 
brush,  who  flicks  the  particles  of  white  dust  off  your  feet 
before  you  are  permitted  to  enter  the  hall.  In  fact,  in 
all  the  hotels  in  Athens  it  is  the  sole  business  of  one  of 
the  attendants  to  stand  in  the  doorway,  feather-brush  in 
hand,  and  give  the  visitors  a  dusting  whenever  they  come 
in  from  the  town.  There  is  very  little  rain  in  Attica,  and 
the  watering  carts,  efficient  though  they  are,  cannot  really 
moisten  the  dry  and  glistening  soil.  Besides,  water  is  a 
luxury  in  Greece.  The  classic  river  Ilissus,  with  its 
pleasant  associations  of  Plato  and  Socrates,  does  not  for  a 
considerable  portion  of  the  year  contain  a  drop  of  water, 
and  sitting  in  "  Paradise  " — the  name  of  a  riparian  restau- 
rant— I  could  not  detect  a  particle  of  moisture  in  the  bed 
of  the  classic  stream,  which,  according  to  an  English  poet 
who  had  never  seen  it,  "  rolls  "  its  waters  to  the  sea.  No 
grassy  banks,  such  as  Plato  has  described  in  a  memorable 
passage,  invite  philosophic  dialogue  now,  just  as  at 
Kolonos  the  ivy  has  disappeared  since  the  days  of 
Sophocles.  Of  all  cities  that  I  know,  Athens  is  the  most 
destitute  of  trees.  In  the  King's  garden  alone,  to  which 
the  public  are  admitted,  it  is  possible  to  find  refreshing 
shade  and  listen  to  the  "Attic  bird."  But  the  cost  of 
watering  the  Royal  pleasure-grounds  must  be  very  great, 

257  s 


Travels  and   Politics 

and  when  the  first  Queen,  AmaHa,  of  Greece  attempted  to 
plant  the  slopes  of  Lycabettus,  a  hole  had  to  be  blasted 
for  each  tree  and  earth  put  into  the  place,  where  it  was 
hoped  the  sapling  would  grow.  Standing  on  the  Akropolis, 
you  survey  a  barren  tract  of  land  on  every  side  of  the  city 
which  lies  at  your  feet.  Attica  can  never  be  fertile,  and 
will  always  preserve  that  "  light  soil  "  which  Thucydides 
ascribed  to  it. 

But  the  Greek  capital  cannot  fail  to  be  one  of  the  most 
amusing  places  to  visit,  quite  apart  from  its  classical  trea- 
sures and  associations.  No  one,  of  course,  can  defend  the 
taste  of  the  German  architects,  who  laid  out  modern 
Athens  on  the  model  of  Munich,  and  planted  a  brand-new 
European  city  by  the  side  of  the  majestic  ruins  of  antiquity. 
The  wide  streets,  entirely  destitute  of  shade,  make  the  towai 
in  summer  a  veritable  inferno,  while  the  glare  from  the 
white  marble  houses  is  most  trying  to  the  eye.  But  Athens 
is  par  excellence  the  Paris  of  the  East.  There  are  the 
same  cafes  and  kiosques,  there  is  the  same  brightness 
about  the  shops  and  streets — of  course  on  a  much  smaller 
scale.  Just  as  at  Corfu  Italian,  so  here  French  is  the 
most  serviceable  language  after  Greek,  and  one  newspaper 
actually  appears  in  the  French  tongue.  But  the  Greeks 
are  much  more  amusing  than  the  French,  and  to  my 
mind  their  daily  papers — of  which  there  are  thirteen  in 
Athens  and  the  Piraeus — are  much  better  written  than 
any  with  which  I  am  acquainted  elsewhere.  Some  of  the 
articles  on  the  late  Mr.  Gladstone,  for  example,  were 
models  of  style  and  good  taste  ;  and  in  enterprise  the 
Athenian  journalists  are  not  far  behind  those  of  the  West. 
After  the  dulness  of  Sofia  and  Belgrade,  Athens  is  bright- 
ness itself,  and,  having  seen  it  under  all  aspects,  I  have 
always  found  it  fascinating  and  interesting. 

On  my  first  visit  I  had  the  good  fortune  to  witness  the 
Easter  celebrations,  the  most  remarkable  festival  of  the 

258 


in  the   Near  East 

whole  year  in  Greece.     For  the  entire  Greek  people — or 
what  is  practically  the  same  thing,  all  those  who  belong 
to  the  Greek  Church — take  part  in  the  ceremonial,  from 
the  highest  to  the  lowest,  from  the  Prime  Minister  and 
his  colleagues  down  to  the  rough  shepherds  of  Hymettos, 
who  come  into  Athens,  each  from  his  lonely  sheep-walk, 
for  the  occasion.    The  function  began  on  Thursday  night 
with    what    is   here    called   the    reading    of    "the    hvelve 
gospels,"  that  is  to  say,  the  three  chapters  of  each  of  the 
four  Gospels  which  describe  the  sufferings  of  our  Lord, 
and  which  are  read  in  as   many  languages  as  possible. 
It  takes  about  three  hours  to  read  these  chapters  through, 
and   all  the  time  the  churches  both  at  Athens  and  the 
Piraeus  were  full  of  people  listening  to  the  narratives  of 
the   Evangelists.     When    I    went   out   on  Good    Friday 
("Great"  Friday,  as  the  Greeks  call  it)  morning  I  found 
that  the  streets  had  been  gaily  decorated,  and  that  booths 
for  the  sale  of  wax  candles  and  Bengal  lights — pliospJiSra, 
as   the    Greeks   call    them — were   being   erected   in   the 
neighbourhood    of   the    old    bazar.     Countrymen    could 
be  seen   in   all   directions,  each  carrying  a  lamb  on  his 
back  or  in  his  arms,  usually  in  a  position  which  must 
have  been  most  uncomfortable  for  the  poor  beast.     The 
demand  for  lambs  is  enormous  at  that  time,  for  at  the 
Paschal  festival  each  Greek  household — or  if  it  be  too 
poor,  two  families  combined — roasts  a  lamb  in  the  open 
air,  just  as  the   Jews  were  bidden  to   do    in  the   Book 
of    Exodus  ;   and  preparations  were  made   in   the   back- 
yard of  our  hotel  for  the  event.     The  animal's  carcase 
is   spitted   on   a   long    pole   and   turned    by   a   wooden 
handle  over  a  slow  fire,  while  a  man  stands  over  it  and 
bastes  it.      On  this  occasion  the  earthquakes  had  made 
the  people  even  more  observant  of  religious  ceremonies 
than    usual.      As  I  was  in  the  cathedral  about  half-past 
eight    on    Good    Friday    evening    watching   the   grand 

259 


Travels  and   Politics 

ceremony,  there  came  a  sudden  trembling  all  over  the 
ground,  and  the  whole  building  shook  like  an  aspen  leaf 
in  the  wind.  Immediately  the  congregation,  which  had 
crowded  into  the  cathedral  from  all  parts  of  the  town, 
shouted  aloud  in  terror,  completely  drowning  the  voices 
of  the  priests,  and  a  panic  ensued  such  as  might  easily 
have  been  fatal.  I  was  standing  about  five  yards  from 
the  late  M.Tricoupis,  the  then  Greek  Premier,  and  I  could 
not  help  admiring  the  coolness  with  which  the  Prime 
Minister  stood  the  shock.  His  face  never  moved  a  muscle, 
and  while  his  excited  compatriots  were  rushing  towards 
the  door  he  remained  perfectly  still,  calm  and  collected, 
and  holding  the  lighted  taper  which,  like  the  rest  of  the 
worshippers,  he  had  in  his  hand.  It  was  said  of  M.Tri- 
coupis by  his  countrymen  that  his  fourteen  years'  residence 
in  England  had  made  him  almost  an  Englishman,  and  he 
certainly  possessed  that  reserved  manner  and  absence  of 
emotion  which  are  supposed  to  be  characteristic  of  our 
race.  The  example  which  he  and  those  near  him  set  the 
rest  of  the  people  in  the  cathedral  had  its  effect,  and  quiet 
was  restored  so  that  the  service  could  be  concluded. 
Had  the  roof  collapsed,  as  it  might  have  done,  great 
indeed  would  have  been  the  disaster,  worse  even  than 
that  which  a  few  days  earlier  had  destroyed  the  little 
town  of  Atalante. 

After  the  services  were  over  in  the  various  churches, 
at  nine  o'clock  there  were  processions  following  the  cross 
through  the  streets  to  the  Place  de  la  Constitution,  which 
is  the  principal  square  of  the  city,  and  in  which  the  King's 
Palace  and  all  the  most  central  hotels  are  situated.  I  ran 
on  in  front  of  the  chief  procession  and  mounted  the 
balcony  of  my  hotel  so  as  to  obtain  a  good  view  of  it  as  it 
passed  by.  The  whole  square  seemed  ablaze  with  lights, 
for  almost  every  one  was  carrying  a  taper,  and  the  chil- 
dren  were  letting  off   Roman    candles,   while   the  large 

260 


in  the  Near  East 

houses  and  hotels  were  brilliantly  illuminated  with  red 
and  green  fires.  There  were  the  officers  and  soldiers  of 
the  Greek  army  in  their  full-dress  uniform,  with  their 
orders  and  decorations  ;  the  people  from  the  country  in 
their  picturesque  national  dress,  and  sightseers  in  the  more 
sombre  garb  of  Western  Europe.  As  the  several  pro- 
cessions filed  along  it  seemed  quite  a  fairy  scene,  though 
every  now  and  then  a  slight  motion  of  the  earth  beneath 
reminded  us  that  even  Athens  has  its  disadvantages  as  a 
place  of  residence. 

But  the  excitement  in  Athens  during  the  earthquakes 
was  nothing  to  that  during  the  war.  If  the  pedantic 
historian  Fallmerayer  had  been  alive  and  in  Athens  then 
he  would  have  had  to  reconsider  his  famous  decision,  that 
the  modern  Greeks  had  no  claim  to  be  the  descendants 
of  the  ancient  Hellenes.  No  one  could  have  been  there 
at  that  eventful  moment  in  the  national  history  without 
recognising  at  once  in  the  crowds  of  people  who  thronged 
the  Place  de  la  Constitution  every  evening  all  those 
characteristics  which  Aristophanes  noted  long  ago  in 
his  comedies,  and  which  the  author  of  the  Acts  of  the 
Apostles  summed  up  in  that  memorable  description  of  St. 
Paul's  speech  upon  Mars'  Hill.  Last  year,  as  in  those 
days,  it  was  true  that  "  all  the  Athenians  and  strangers 
which  were  there  spent  their  time  in  nothing  else  but 
either  to  tell  or  to  hear  some  new  thing."  The  large 
square  in  front  of  the  Palace,  which  is  to  modern  Athens 
what  the  agora  was  to  the  Athens  of  the  golden  age,  was 
crammed  with  thousands  of  persons  of  all  nationalities  and 
of  every  garb,  all  discussing  one  thing — the  war.  For 
the  war,  disastrous  as  it  was  for  the  country,  had  at  any 
rate  enabled  the  Greeks  to  realise  to  the  full  their  beau- 
ideal  of  existence — to  drink  coffee  and  talk  politics. 
Black-coated  citizens  of  Athens  jostled  red-shirtcd  Gari- 
baldians,    armed   to    the    teeth,    and    carrying   all    their 

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Travels  and   Politics 

cooking  utensils  upon  their  backs,  as  if  they  were 
about  to  start  for  the  front  at  a  moment's  notice. 
Italian  Socialists  in  fierce  sombreros  might  be  seen  by 
the  side  of  the  evzonoi  or  riflemen,  dressed  in  the  national 
costume.  A  corps  of  French  volunteers  was  easily  dis- 
tinguished among  the  crowd  by  its  white  helmets  and 
the  yellow  facings  of  its  uniform.  Then  there  were  wild- 
looking  shepherds  from  Acarnania  and  .^tolia,  clad  in 
sheepskins  or  rough  frieze  coats,  and  affording  a  great 
contrast  to  the  dapper  denizens  of  the  Rue  d' Hermes 
or  the  Rue  du  Stade.  Here  and  there  you  might  see  the 
dark  blue  and  scarlet  dress  of  an  English  nurse  and  the 
bandaged  head  of  a  Greek  soldier,  back  from  fighting  in 
the  trenches  of  Thessaly. 

Every  quarter  of  an  hour  a  fresh  yell  was  heard,  and 
a  fresh  army  of  newspaper  boys  invaded  the  square, 
shrieking  out  the  latest  editions  ■  of  the  newspapers. 
From  early  morning  to  midnight  the  air  was  filled 
with  the  shouts  of  newsvendors  urging  the  rival  merits 
of  the  Akropolis,  the  Paliggenesia,  the  Astv,  and  the 
EpJieiiier/s.  I  witnessed  every  afternoon  a  most  diverting 
race  by  some  score  or  more  newsboys  to  which  Fleet 
Street,  even  at  the  hour  of  "  extra  specials,"  could  show 
no  parallel.  One  day  a  poor  little  fellow,  exhausted  with 
his  labours,  fell  down  at  the  end  of  his  race,  and  was 
soon  sleeping  from  sheer  physical  fatigue  over  his  bundle 
of  half-sold  papers.  Buyers  were  as  keen  as  the  sellers, 
and  the  inhabitants  devoured  the  journals.  Sometimes 
a  demagogue  would  collect  a  little  knot  of  people  round 
him  and  read  aloud  his  favourite  organ  with  comments 
as  he  read.  Those  two  months  were,  indeed,  a  splendid 
time  for  the  Athenian  newspapers  ;  in  fact,  theirs  was  the 
only  trade  that  prospered  during  the  crisis.  If  you  saw 
an  excited  crowd  in  the  streets,  you  might  be  sure  that 
one    of   two    things   was   happening — either   a   body   of 

262 


in  the  Near  East 

soldiers  was  passing  or  a  new  edition  of  some  newspaper 
was  just  coming  out  !  Newspapers  and  soldiers,  politics 
and  the  war — such  was  Athens  then.  The  waiter  who 
served  your  coffee  stopped  to  asked  your  views  or  air  his 
own  on  the  latest  action  of  the  Ministry,  and  when  the 
news  of  Domoko  arrived,  as  we  were  at  dinner,  the  whole 
staff  of  our  hotel  rushed  out  into  the  square  to  discuss 
the  situation.  Every  bootblack  who  cleaned  your  shoes 
for  a  halfpenny  was  ready  with  his  opinion  on  the 
King's  position,  and  the  newspaper  boys  actually  read  as 
they  ran  the  leading  articles  in  their  own  organs  !  No 
matter  how  sensational  or  how  improbable  might  be  the 
news  from  the  front,  people  read  it,  provided  only  that  is 
were  new.  As  for  criticism,  every  one  in  the  square  was 
a  critic,  and  only  one  person  was  above  criticism.  That 
one  person  was  General  Constantine  Smolenski,  who  was 
the  man  of  the  moment.  But,  with  the  sole  exception  of 
the  redoubtable  Smolenski,  every  military  authority  was 
keenly  and  minutely  criticised  by  civilians,  who  had 
never  seen  a  shot  fired  in  anger.  There  was  a 
moment  when  the  excited  mob  of  the  square,  one 
side  of  which  is  formed  by  the  long  block  of  the 
Palace  buildings,  only  wanted  a  signal  to  burn  the 
Royal  residence  down  in  their  fury  against  their 
sovereign.  But  astute  managers  of  the  crowd  saved 
the  situation  by  drawing  off  the  people  into  other 
parts  of  the  city,  and  a  revolution  was  averted. 

It  is  a  profound  political  mistake  for  the  ruler  of  a 
small  and  intensely  excitable  capital  to  reside  in  the  very 
centre  of  all  public  agitation.  The  Palace  at  Athens  is 
always  at  hand  to  give  point  to  the  revolutionary  ravings 
in  which  any  demagogue  of  the  square  may  choose  to 
indulge,  and  there  is  not  even  a  railing  to  keep  the  people 
from  surging,  as  they  did  one  critical  day,  on  to  the  Palace 
steps.     The  rulers  of  modern  Greece  in  their  desire  to  be 

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seen  by  their  people  have  forgotten  the  sakitary  advice  of 
the  old  Athenian  philosopher,  who  warned  the  Sovereign 
of  a  small  Greek  State  not  to  make  his  appearance  too 
often,  but  to  live  somewhat  aloof  from  the  disputes  of  the 
agora.  Here,  however,  all  the  public  discontent  and  all 
the  demagogic  criticism  of  the  city  are  focussed  in  the 
square  right  under  the  windows  of  the  Palace,  and  last 
year  the  result  might  have  been  a  repetition  of  the  scenes 
which  took  place  in  1843  and  1862,  during  the  reign 
of  King  Otho  and  at  the  close  of  that  misunderstood 
Monarch's  sovereignty.  But  this  intense  centralisation 
of  everything  in  one  spot,  just  as  in  the  glorious  days  of 
ancient  Athens,  has  a  picturesque  effect  which  no  other 
capital  in  Europe  can  show.  The  Place  de  la  Constitution 
is  thus,  at  all  times,  the  great  stage  on  which  the  drama 
of  Athenian  life  is  played.  Every  evening,  after  the  pre- 
liminary afternoon  performance  at  coffee-time,  the  curtain 
goes  up,  as  it  were,  for  a  fresh  performance,  and  the 
same  persons  come  forth  to  play  the  same  parts.  It  is  an 
amusing  spectacle  for  the  stranger,  but  it  has  its  pathetic 
aspect  too. 

But  during  the  war  there  was  pathos  everywhere. 
The  city  was  not  only  a  hospital  for  the  wounded,  but  a 
refuge  for  the  destitute.  While  every  street  reeked  of 
iodoform,  almost  every  boat  brought  in  fresh  bands  of 
miserable  Thessalians  to  swell  the  number  of  the 
Cretans  already  scattered  about  Greece.  Soup  kitchens 
were  organised  for  the  relief  of  the  destitute  Cretans  both 
in  Athens  and  at  the  Piraeus.  At  one  of  these  kitchens  I 
witnessed  the  daily  dole  of  pildf,  soup  and  rice,  to  763 
Cretan  refugees,  whose  gratitude  was  quite  touching 
to  behold.  The  Cretan  exiles  were,  for  the  most  part, 
women  and  children,  whose  looks  belied  the  popular 
conception  of  Cretan  ferocity.  The  children  were 
merry  little  things,  many  having  bright  blue  eyes  and 

264 


in  the  Near  East 

fair  hair,  which  made  them  far  more  Hke  EngHsh 
children  than  the  juvenile  Greeks  of  Athens.  Several 
of  the  Cretan  women  were  strikingly  beautiful,  and  the 
whole  colony  seemed  much  more  lively  and  jolly  than 
could  have  been  expected  under  the  circumstances.  But 
that  is  your  Greek's  way.  His  brief  lit  of  dejection  passes 
quickly  by  like  a  shower  of  rain  in  Attica,  and  defeat 
makes  as  temporary  an  impression  upon  him  as  the  rain- 
drops on  the  dusty  streets  of  Athens.  Soldiers  returned 
from  the  front  as  if  they  had  not  been  defeated,  and  the 
children  of  houseless  and  homeless  refugees  played  hide- 
and-seek  as  if  they  had  lost  nothing  by  the  disasters  of 
the  war.  One  of  the  Cretan  exiles  whom  I  interviewed 
was  an  ex-editor,  who  was  reduced,  poor  fellow,  to 
cooking  his  very  scanty  meal  with  his  own  hands. 
The  Greek  Government  had  provided  the  Cretans 
with  shelter  in  schools,  barracks,  and  any  other  public 
building  that  was  not  a  hospital,  and  there  the  exiles 
could  be  found  with  their  scanty  household  gods,  one 
family  being  sometimes  separated  from  another  by 
nothing  more  substantial  than  a  row  of  school  benches, 
which  formed  an  impromptu  wall  of  partition.  The 
Government  gave  the  Cretans  bread,  but  for  all  else 
they  depended  upon  either  private  benevolence  or  any 
small  means  they  might  themselves  possess.  At  the 
Government  soup  kitchens  they  had  to  pay  ten  Icptd, 
or  about  ^d,  for  the  bowl  of  pildf ;  at  the  private  establish- 
ments of  the  same  kind  the  soup  was  entirely  free,  and 
was  distributed  by  means  of  tickets  and  vouchers  in  the 
most  methodical  manner.  The  ladies  of  Athens,  in  spite 
of  the  libels  upon  them  in  some  quarters,  were  indefatig- 
able in  their  labours,  both  in  the  hospitals  and  at  the 
soup  kitchens,  and  I  witnessed  the  touching  sight  of  one 
Greek  lady,  herself  an  exile  from  Smyrna,  presiding  over 
one  of  the  latter  with  consummate  business  ability.   Others, 

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who  could  not  well  give  time  or  money,  contributed  the 
equivalent  of  both.  Thus,  the  Athenian  cabdrivers 
always  made  a  reduction  of  one-quarter  of  their  fare 
for  all  those  engaged  in  the  soup  kitchens,  while  the 
Railway  Company  gave  free  passes  to  the  members 
of  the  Committee  and  their  assistants.  In  fact,  the 
whole  Athenian  community  did  what  it  could,  at  the 
cost  of  considerable  personal  sacrifices,  for  those  who 
had  suffered  from  the  events  of  the  previous  few 
months. 

The  scenes  in  the  hospitals  were  as  strange  and  as  sad 
as  the  spectacle  of  all  these  thousands  of  refugees.  The 
wounded,  among  whom  were  men  of  all  nationalities — 
Greeks,  Italians,  English,  Austrians,  and  Danes — were 
united  by  a  common  suffering,  and  all  equally  delighted 
to  see  a  visitor.  The  English  nurses  won  golden  opinions 
and  broke  not  a  few  hearts  with  their  ''  angelic  faces " 
and  "pre-Raphaelite  features,"  and  soon  learned  enough 
Greek  to  make  their  patients  understand  their  orders. 
So  soon  as  the  Greek  patients  recovered,  their  first  desire 
was  for  newspapers  and  cigarettes — those  two  things 
which  form  the  Hellenic  ideal  of  paradise  on  earth. 
Chloroform  was  very  sparingly  used,  only  for  the  gravest 
operations  ;  for  the  Greeks  have  the  greatest  dislike  of 
anaesthetics,  and  can  undergo  extreme  torture  without 
showing  a  sign  of  pain.  In  all  my  visits  to  the  hospitals 
I  only  heard  of  one  case  in  which  the  patient  cried  out 
under  an  operation.  Yet  in  some  of  the  Greek  hospitals 
they  had  no  operating  theatre,  but  the  surgeons  did  their 
work  on  tables  in  the  wards.  The  Crown  Princess  was 
indefatigable  in  her  rounds,  though  sometimes  she 
received  the  harshest  welcome  from  the  patients,  who 
could  not  forgive  the  Crown  Prince  the  defeats  of  the 
Greek  arms.  Thus,  so  the  story  went,  she  was  kindly 
commiserating  the  hard  lot  of  a  poor  soldier  who  had 

266 


in  the  Near  East 

lost  a  leg  in  action.  "  I  hope,"  she  said,  "  that  you  will 
soon  get  well  again."  "  Yes,"  replied  the  man  savagely, 
"  well  enough  to  shoot  your  husband."  Such  barbarities 
did  not,  however,  prevent  the  ladies  of  the  Royal  Family 
from  doing  a  thousand  acts  of  kindness  to  the  sick  and 
wounded,  and  even  an  arch-Republican,  after  denouncing 
the  dynasty,  made  an  exception  in  favour  of  the  Crown 
Princess,  the  goodness  of  whose  heart  he  recognised. 
One  of  the  most  interesting  patients  whom  1  saw  during 
my  rounds  was  the  young  Greek  girl  from  the  neighbour- 
hood of  Lamia,  who,  after  shooting  ten  Turks,  was 
wounded  in  two  places,  and  lay  at  the  Mavromichaelis 
Hospital.  Her  name  was  Catherine  Bassaropoulo,  and  she 
was  nineteen  years  old.  When  I  congratulated  her  on  her 
courage  her  pretty  brown  face  was  covered  with  blushes, 
and  she  hid  her  face  in  her  pillow.  There  was  absolutely 
no  reclame  about  her  :  she  went  to  the  war  because  her 
brother,  a  small  shopkeeper,  had  gone  too,  and  she  had 
no  parents  with  whom  to  stay.  Another  Amazon,  who 
escaped,  however,  unscathed,  was  Helena  Constantinidou, 
whose  portrait  adorned  all  the  shop  windows,  and  who 
was  standard-bearer  of  the  Botzaris  Division  in  Epirus. 
She  wore  her  hair  down  her  back,  but  dressed  in  other 
respects  like  a  man.  She  soon  found,  however,  that 
the  work  was  very  fatiguing,  and  seemed  not  to  have 
done  much.  But  the  heroine  of  the  hospital  went  a  la 
guerre  conune  a  la  guerre.  It  was  curious  to  notice  how 
proud  all  the  wounded  were  of  their  bullets.  One 
of  them,  a  burly  Montenegrin,  handed  me,  when  I 
approached  his  bedside,  a  bottle  of  spirits  containing  a 
piece  of  his  bone  w^ith  a  bullet  fixed  in  it.  The  nurse 
said  that  he  was  never  happy  unless  he  could  gaze  at  this 
grim  memento  of  the  war.  Down  at  the  Daily  CJiroiiicle 
hospital  on  the  Bay  of  Zea  lay  the  wounded  volunteers, 
most  prominent  among  them  Captain   Birch,  of  whose 

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Travels  and  Politics 

feats  in  the  field  the  Greeks  were  never  tired  of  talking ; 
in  the  next  bed  was  Mr.  Jones,  the  famous  football-player, 
his  knee  fractured  with  a  bullet,  who  told  me  with  en- 
thusiasm of  the  captain's  bravery  when  the  Turks  were 
upon  him  and  his  men,  and  added  that  he  "would  not 
have  missed  this  war  for  anything."  Hard  by  were  a 
number  of  wounded  Garibaldians,  ever  bright  and  lively, 
and  distinguished  from  the  Greek  patients  by  the  esprit 
dc  corps  which  always  prevailed  among  them.  The  one 
wounded  Turkish  prisoner  in  the  military  hospital  under 
the  Akropolis  was  the  object  of  general  interest  and 
attention. 

Perhaps  no  place  in  Greece,  not  even  Athens  itself, 
has  undergone  a  greater  change  during  the  last  sixty 
years  than  the  famous  port  of  the  ancient  Athenians,  the 
spot  which  is  associated  in  literature  with  the  names  of 
Themistocles  and  Pericles  ;  the  place  to  which  Socrates 
took  that  memorable  walk  commemorated  in  the  opening 
lines  of  Plato's  "Republic";  the  source  and  centre  of 
the  naval  supremacy  of  the  Athenian  State.  Now  for 
the  first  time  for  centuries  the  Piraeus  is  itself  again,  and 
an  eminent  Athenian  savant  estimates  that  the  harbour, 
whose  shores  were  a  mere  barren  waste  when  King  Otho 
entered  Athens  in  1833,  and  whose  very  name  was  almost 
forgotten,  is  now  as  prosperous  and  as  populous  as  in  the 
days  of  Athenian  greatness  of  which  Thucydides  has 
given  us  such  a  striking  account.  Always  busy,  the 
Piraeus  was  last  year  the  scene  of  perhaps  the  most 
exciting  events  of  that  stirring  drama,  the  Greco-Turkish 
war.  The  port  was  crowded  in  every  nook  and  corner 
with  the  steamers  of  the  Greek  merchant  fleet,  which  the 
Government  had  requisitioned  for  the  transport  of  troops 
and  the  service  of  the  sick.  At  one  quay  you  might  see 
a  vessel,  flying  the  Hellenic  flag,  and  taking  on  board  a 
number  of  red-shirted  Garibaldians,  all  of  them  tres  boiis 

268 


in  the  Near   East 

cainerades,  and  singing  and  laughing  as  they  marched  up 
the  gangway  that  led  to  Domoko  and,  it  might  be,  death. 
At  another  quay  hard  by,  a  steamer,  the  TliessalUi,  on 
which  in  happier  days  I  had  made  pleasant  voyages 
among  hyacinthine  isles  and  over  summery  seas,  was 
unloading  her  cargo  of  wounded  Greeks,  fearfully  cut 
about  the  head  by  fragments  of  Turkish  shells — those 
shells  which  M.  Delyannis  had  vainly  declared  "  would 
not  explode," — Italian  volunteers,  with  their  legs  muti- 
lated and  their  red  shirts  rent  in  pieces,  and  here  and 
there  an  Englishman,  who  had  proved  by  his  broken 
arm  and  bandaged  side  that  the  spirit  of  Cochrane  and 
Church  still  lived  among  their  compatriots.  It  was  a 
ghastly  sight  to  see  these  poor  fellows  borne  out  on 
stretchers  in  the  fierce  noontide  sun  of  Attica,  and 
slowly  drawn  in  landaus  to  the  hospitals  of  the  Pira3us. 
But  sadder  still  was  the  spectacle  of  those,  for  whom  the 
Piraeus  hospitals  had  no  room,  and  who  were  accordingly 
conveyed  to  the  railway  station,  and  there  laid  on  the 
floor  of  the  booking  office  or  on  the  platform  itself  till 
the  train  was  ready  to  convey  them  up  to  the  Theseion 
Station  at  Athens.  Arrived  there,  they  had  another  hot 
drive  before  them,  for  covered  ambulances  were  not  to 
be  found,  and  happy  was  the  man  who  could  find  a 
friend  to  cover  his  eyes  with  a  handkerchief  from  the 
fiery  glare  of  the  Athenian  streets. 

But  the  Pirajus  had  other  sights  to  show  hardly  less 
pathetic  than  the  arrival  of  the  wounded  soldiers.  The 
place  was  swarming  with  the  refugees  from  Thessaly, 
whom  the  terror  of  the  Turkish  advance  had  driven  in 
hundreds  from  their  once  peaceful  villages  and  home- 
steads. One  girl  was  seized  with  such  alarm  at  the  mere 
approach  of  the  Turks,  that  she  contracted  a  nervous 
complaint,  which  prevented  her  from  lying  still  on  her 
bed  for  a  moment.      But   the   transport  of   these  poor 

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Travels  and  Politics 

creatures  was  no  easy  work.  Colonel  Le  Mesiirier,  the 
Duke  of  Westminster's  agent,  who  was  engaged  with  a 
Committee  of  Greek  gentlemen  in  this  task,  told  me  some 
heartrending  stories  of  the  rush  on  board  the  vessels — 
how  mothers  were  separated  from  children  and  children 
from  mothers  in  the  struggle  for  a  passage,  and  how  those 
who  were  left  behind  piteously  implored  the  aid  of  those 
more  fortunate  refugees  who  had  been  taken  on  board. 
In  one  case  three  babies  were  abandoned  by  accident  on 
the  quay,  and  the  steamer,  with  their  three  mothers  on 
board,  departed  without  them.  The  next  ship  which 
started  took  the  three  children  in  charge,  and  the  kind- 
hearted  captain  kept  and  fed  them  in  his  cabin  until  they 
reached  the  Piraeus.  A  search  for  the  mothers  there 
proved  fruitless ;  but  the  captain,  nothing  daunted, 
handed  the  three  babies  over  to  a  compassionate  priest 
during  his  stay  in  port,  and  then  at  his  departure  once 
more  took  them  into  his  cabin,  and  scoured  the  seas  in 
pursuit  of  their  mothers.  On  a  rocky  island,  where  a 
band  of  fugitives  had  been  temporarily  landed,  he 
discovered  the  three  mothers  by  dint  of  the  bellman's 
efforts,  and  mothers  and  children  were  once  more  united, 
to  their  mutual  delight.  Such  incidents  were  of  common 
occurrence  during  that  terrible  time,  and  not  a  vessel 
arrived  at  the  Piraeus  without  its  human  tragedy. 

But  the  harbour  was  not  occupied  by  transports  alone. 
There  were  moored  by  their  sterns  to  the  quays  number- 
less caiques  from  the  islands,  whose  owners,  clad  in  the 
baggy,  dark-blue  trousers  of  the  ^Egean  mariners,  were 
driving  a  good  trade  in  the  wares  of  the  Levant.  They 
had  all  converted  the  sterns  of  their  boats  into  improvised 
counters,  on  which  were  displayed  white  cmiphonv  of 
classic  shape,  such  as  the  Caryatides  might  have  carried, 
piles  of  oranges  and  lemons  and  strings  of  onions,  care- 
fully plaited  by  the  sailors.     All  around  was  a  babel  of 

270 


in  the  Near  East 

tongues,  and  almost  every  nationality,  except  the  Turkish, 
was  represented  there.  The  cafe  chantant,  which  greeted 
one  with  flaming  advertisements  of  its  attractions,  in 
Greek  and  Russian,  French  and  English,  Italian  and 
German,  was  a  veritable  national  concert,  quite  as  in- 
harmonious as  that  of  the  Powers.  The  native  of  the 
Piraeus  speaks  all  languages  badly  ;  the  pure  Attic  of  the 
Athenian  editors  is  very  different  from  the  jargon  here. 
Up  in  the  town,  which  has  now  out-distanced  Syra,  and 
become  the  successful  rival  of  Patras,  business  of  all  sorts 
is  brisker  than  elsewhere  at  present.  There  are  tanneries 
and  engine  works,  cloth  mills  and  flour  mills,  and  withal 
the  nucleus  of  a  very  big  commercial  town.  One  day,  if 
Greece  becomes  a  well  administered  country,  of  which 
there  are  signs  at  this  moment,  the  Piraeus  and  Athens 
will  join  hands  and  form  one  great  city.  Even  now, 
although  there  is  a  great  gap  of  open  country  between 
them,  the  communication  between  the  two  towns  is 
almost  uninterrupted.  Trains  every  half-hour  unite  the 
capital  and  its  busy  port,  and  the  extension  of  this  local 
line  by  means  of  a  tunnel,  which  recalls  our  under- 
ground railway,  three  years  ago,  has  greatly  increased  the 
traffic.  It  may  seem  somewhat  of  a  sacrilege  to  descend 
into  a  railway  station  just  below  the  ruins  of  the  Theseion, 
which  gives  its  name  to  the  stopping-place.  But  it  is  the 
peculiar  characteristic  of  Athens  to  place  the  very  old 
and  the  very  new  in  the  closest  proximity,  without  that 
intermediate  mediaeval  transition  which  one  has  at  Rome. 
The  steam  tram  to  Phaleron,  again,  is  not  a  beautiful 
object  viewed  from  the  Akropolis,  but  it  enables  the  jaded 
Athenians,  choked  with  the  dust  and  dazzled  with  the 
glare,  which  are  the  two  plagues  of  the  Greek  capital,  to 
escape  in  a  few  minutes  to  the  bracing  air  of  the  sea- 
shore, where  the  beginnings  of  a  fashionable  watering- 
place  are  growing   up.     For    Phaleron,   if  at   present  it 

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somewhat  resembles  a  French  plage  en  creation,  will  one 
day  be  the  Brighton  of  the  ^-Egean,  the  Athens-on-Sea  of 
the  future.  Even  now  it  shares  with  the  suburban  retreat 
of  Kephisia,  on  the  slopes  of  Pentelikon,  the  affections 
of  well-to-do  Athenians,  who  want  a  change  from  the 
monotonous  whiteness  of  the  Boulevard  de  I'Universite. 
But  before  Phaleron  can  become  a  fine  watering-place 
and  the  Piraeus  a  Liverpool  of  the  Levant,  Greece  must 
possess  a  sound  and  practical  Administration,  which  will 
bring  order  into  the  national  finances,  put  an  end  to  the 
existing  forced  paper  currency,  and  spend  money  on  such 
important  things  as  docks  and  roads  and  better  railway 
communication  with  "  Europe." 

Of  all  the  excursions  to  be  made  from  Athens,  that  to 
the  battlefield  of  Marathon  is  by  far  the  most  interesting. 
Salamis  has  now  been  converted  into  a  prosaic  quaran- 
tine station,  where  passengers  from  Constantinople  may 
gaze  at  the  throne  of  Xerxes  without  being  allowed  to 
land  and  visit  it,  while  Levsina  gives  one  but  little  idea  of 
what  the  ancient  scene  of  the  Eleusinian  mysteries  must 
have  been.  But  Marathon  has  not  greatly  changed,  I 
imagine,  since  that  memorable  day,  nearly  2,400  years 
ago,  when  the  fate  of  the  world  was  decided  on  that 
unostentatious  plain.  A  high  archaeological  authority  in 
Athens  even  maintained  to  me,  that  the  mound,  which 
we  see  there  now,  is  the  identical  heap  of  earth  which 
was  raised  over  the  bodies  of  the  Athenian  soldiers 
who  fell  there  in  490  B.C.  Some  recent  excavations 
have  made  a  hollow  in  one  side  of  the  mound,  which 
has  been  worn  bare  and  flat  at  the  top,  save  for  a 
few  shrubs.  When  I  ate  my  lunch  in  the  hollow,  the 
sides  of  the  mound  were  covered  with  poppies,  and  the 
fxapadog,  or  "fennel,"  which  gave  its  name  to  the  place, 
was  most  abundant.  The  plain  all  around  was  covered 
with  vineyards,  which  produce  an  excellent  white  wine, 

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in  the   Near   East 

sold  every  year  to  the  proprietors  of  the  Grand  Hotel  in 
Paris — a  strange  fate  for  the  ancient  battlefield.  I  saw 
this  vintage  being  poured  into  huge  casks  at  a  neigh- 
bouring winepress.  Patches  of  olive  trees  and  fig  trees 
and  pieces  of  corn-land  were  scattered  here  and  there 
among  the  plots  of  vines,  while  a  solitary  crab-apple  tree 
stands  at  the  foot  of  the  mound  and  keeps  watch,  like  a 
sentinel,  over  the  dust  of  the  Greeks,  who  died  on  the 
plain  all  these  centuries  ago.  I  found  the  owner  of  the 
winepress  at  Marathon  a  very  pleasant  person,  who  knew 
a  little  English,  and  was  delighted  to  have  an  oppor- 
tunity of  airing  it.  Having  been  at  Constantinople  at  the 
time  when  the  British  fleet  was  ordered  to  Besika  bay, 
he  spoke  with  much  admiration  of  our  admiral,  and  took 
great  pains  to  explain  to  us  the  pressing  of  the  grapes 
in  autumn.  As  his  men  poured  the  wine  into  the  casks, 
he  chalked  upon  the  wall  of  the  house  the  number  of 
jugs  which  each  cask  contained,  and  insisted  upon  our 
sampling  his  vintage — which  was  very  fair,  though  mixed 
with  resin  of  course,  as  most  of  the  Greek  wine  is,  and 
therefore  very  bitter  for  English  palates. 

The  road  from  Athens  to  Marathon  was  the  scene  of 
one  of  the  last  great  acts  of  brigandage  in  Greece.  Our 
driver  pointed  out  the  exact  spot  on  the  estate  of  Pikermi 
where  Lord  Muncaster  and  his  party  were  captured  in 
1870.  The  tragic  fate  of  three  of  the  captives  who 
were  shot  by  the  robbers  is  still  remembered  in  Athens, 
where  their  graves  are  to  be  seen  in  the  quiet  cemetery 
A  similar  incident  occurred  near  Lamia  just  three  years 
ago  ;  and  even  before  the  war  the  Thessalian  frontier 
was  pronounced  unsafe  and  travellers  could  not  cross  it 
without  an  escort  of  soldiers.  I  remember  the  amusing 
disclosures  during  the  trial  of  a  Thessalian  deputy, 
which  called  public  attention  to  the  state  of  things  in 
that  province  in   1894.      It   came  out  in  evidence,  that 

273  T 


Travels  and   Politics 

the  spoil  taken  by  the  Thessahan  brigands  was  to  be 
divided  into  three  equal  shares — one  for  the  brigands, 
one  for  the  deputy  and  his  two  brothers  who  were 
local  functionaries,  and  one  for  the  Church.  As  the 
brigand  deputy  was  a  supporter  of  the  then  Prime 
Minister,  a  large  amount  of  capital  was  made  out  of  this 
trial  by  the  Opposition  newspapers.  On  the  other  side 
frantic  efforts  were  made  to  secure  an  acquittal,  and  after 
a  very  long  inquiry  the  accused  were  acquitted.  Since 
the  war  Thessaly,  which  from  the  days  of  Apuleius  has 
been  the  classic  home  of  brigandage,  is  naturally  less  safe 
than  it  was,  for  after  every  war  in  the  Balkan  Peninsula  the 
discharged  soldiers  on  both  sides  invariably  take  to 
brigandage.  Owing  to  the  low  price  of  rifles  in  Athens 
last  year  and  to  the  raid  upon  the  gunsmiths'  shops,  acts 
of  this  kind  were  recorded  quite  close  to  Athens  itself  ; 
but  in  ordinary  times  the  whole  of  Greece,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  the  Thessalian  frontier,  is  perfectly  safe.  For 
the  traveller  in  the  country  districts  the  savage  dogs  are  a 
far  greater  annoyance  than  any  brigands.  I  have  never 
met  such  noisy  and  truculent  brutes  as  the  Greek  sheep- 
dogs, and  the  first  act  of  a  visitor  on  approaching  a 
village  is  to  arm  himself  with  a  handful  of  stones  with 
which  to  repel  the  attacks  of  these  ferocious  animals.  In 
this  respect,  as  in  so  many  others,  life  in  Greece  is  just 
what  it  was  in  the  Homeric  times.  1  once  heard  a  story 
of  a  dragoman  who  drew  his  revolver  in  self-defence  and 
shot  one  of  his  canine  assailants  dead  on  the  spot  ;  but  as 
he  was  fined  ;^8  as  compensation  to  the  owner,  he  did 
not  repeat  the  experiment. 

Even  Thessaly,  bad  as  its  reputation  for  brigandage  has 
been  in  the  past,  may  be  expected  to  improve,  now  that 
the  Greeks  have  learned  by  bitter  experience  how  valu- 
able a  province  they  would  have  lost  had  the  Turks  been 
allowed  to  retain   it.     During  the  Greek  occupation  of 

274 


in  the  Near  East 

that  naturally  fertile  region  between  1881  and  1897, 
comparatively  little  had  been  done  for  it,  beyond  the 
construction  of  two  lines  of  railway.  The  managing 
director  of  those  lines,  with  whom  I  travelled  up  to  Volo 
on  the  same  steamer  that  took  the  first  batch  of  refugees 
— mostly  small  tradesmen — back  to  their  homes,  was 
very  emphatic  on  the  possibilities  of  the  province.  If 
only  he  could  induce  the  canny  Scot  to  come  out  and 
settle  there  instead  of  emigrating  to  the  Blantyre  High- 
lands, he  thought  that  the  land  could  be  developed  to  a 
marvellous  degree.  At  that  moment,  however,  when  the 
armistice  had  been  barely  signed,  and  the  future  of 
Thessaly  was  doubtful,  it  was  too  soon  to  issue  pro- 
spectuses in  Scotland.  As  we  slowly  steamed  up  the 
magnificent  Gulf  of  Volo,  in  which  the  navies  of  the 
whole  world  could  ride  at  anchor,  we  were  stopped  for  a 
few  minutes  by  a  Greek  man-of-war,  the  Aclicloiis,  and 
closely  watched  by  a  smart  little  Greek  gunboat,  while 
one  of  the  officers  came  on  board  and  ascertained  that 
we  were  not  carrying  munitions  of  war.  But  that  was 
the  sole  obstacle  to  our  course.  As  soon  as  we  reached 
the  harbour  we  were  permitted  to  go  ashore,  and,  to  my 
great  surprise,  the  Turkish  officials,  who  had  installed 
themselves  in  an  office,  which  still  bore  its  Greek  name, 
did  not  even  ask  for  our  passports.  Volo  still  presented 
the  appearance  of  an  almost  deserted  town.  Nothing 
had  been  destroyed  there  by  the  Turks,  and  excellent 
order  prevailed  in  the  streets.  Indeed,  the  Turks  be- 
haved, on  the  whole,  very  well  in  Thessaly.  But  nearly 
all  the  Greek  inhabitants  had  fled,  and  closed  their  shops, 
as  if  a  plague  had  broken  out  in  the  midst  of  this  once 
busy  town,  the  depot  of  all  the  Thessalian  trade. 
Whole  streets  did  not  contain  a  single  open  shop,  but 
here  and  there  a  few  tradesmen,  more  courageous  or 
less  sensitive  than  their  fellows,  had  recommenced  busi- 

275 


Travels  and  Politics 

ness.  The  Hotel  de  France,  a  comfortable  building, 
with  a  pleasant  vine-covered  court  in  front  of  it  facing 
the  bay,  was  occupied  by  a  few  Turkish  officers  wearing 
the  red  crescent  on  their  arms,  while  a  magnificent 
zaptieh  was  sitting  in  the  hall.  One  Greek  to  whom  I 
spoke  was  hard  at  work  making  walking-sticks  as  if 
nothing  had  happened,  and  the  town  was  once  more 
lighted  by  gas,  which  had  been  cut  off  when  the  inhabi- 
tants had  fled.  In  the  streets  and  on  the  quay  a  feu- 
Turkish  soldiers  were  loafing  about,  all  armed  to  the 
teeth  with  rows  upon  rows  of  cartridges.  The  one 
minaret,  which  marked  the  solitary  mosque  of  the 
Mussulman  inhabitants  of  Volo  under  the  Greek  rule, 
was  flanked  by  Turkish  flags,  and  a  certain  number  of 
Turkish  officials  had  arrived  to  organise  the  place. 

A  short  walk  under  a  blazing  sun  brought  me  to  the 
house  which  the  Turkish  Governor,  Envir  Pasha,  had 
selected  as  the  temporary  seat  of  Government.  Since  the 
Turkish  occupation  of  Volo  the  post  of  Governor  had 
been  filled  by  two  different  persons,  according  to  the 
usual  Ottoman  system  of  the  constant  removal  of 
functionaries.  First  Envir  was  appointed,  then  he  was 
removed,  and  then,  on  the  complaint  of  such  inhabitants 
as  remained,  his  successor  had  been  replaced  by  Envir 
again.  Before  the  door  of  his  house  a  heavily-armed 
sentry  was  keeping  guard,  but  no  one  prevented  me  from 
walking  inside,  and  in  a  moment  I  was  ushered  into  the 
presence  of  the  Governor.  Envir  Pasha,  a  pleasant- 
looking  officer  of  about  forty-five  years  of  age,  with  dark 
hair  slightly  tmged  with  grey,  had  just  finished  his 
luncheon  as  I  entered.  He  at  once  rose  from  his  seat, 
sent  for  cigarettes,  and  began  to  discuss  the  state  of 
affairs  in  fluent  French  and  with  great  vivacity.  He  did 
not  seem  to  be  greatly  pleased  with  his  position  at 
Volo,  which   exposed  him  to  constant  claims  from  the 

276 


in  the  Near  East 

Greeks.  He  pointed  out  that  to  the  Turks,  who  have 
practically  no  fleet,  the  splendid  Gulf  was  of  no  use 
whatever,  although  to  any  great  naval  Power  it  would  be 
a  considerable  prize.  Even  in  time  of  peace  it  is  no 
uncommon  thing  to  have  a  British  cruiser  here,  for  the 
station  is  a  very  favourite  one  of  our  fleet.  The  casual 
traveller  would  gather  as  much  from  the  signs  over  the 
inns  upon  the  quay.  I  came  across  such  quaintly  British 
inscriptions  here  as  the  following  :  "  H.M.S.  Volcan's 
Arme's  {sic).  All  kinds  of  drinks  sold  at  English  prices." 
The  latter  is  not  generally  regarded  as  a  great  recom- 
mendation by  those  who  know  what  the  Continental 
scale  of  "English"  prices  means.  In  Italy,  to  pay 
all'  inglese  is  equivalent  to  paying  double  ;  but  at  Volo 
they  consider  that  Jack  Tar  will  prefer  to  pay  for  his, 
probably  indifterent,  grog  the  same  figure  as  it  costs  him 
at  home.  "  Difterent  kinds  of  English  drinking"  is 
another  Voloesque  expression,  while  the  Prince  of 
Wales  had  given  his  name  to  a  seaside  inn.  Another 
place  of  entertainment  advertised  "dancing  by  English 
girls."  But  perhaps  the  most  curious  piece  of  English 
nomenclature  at  Volo  is  to  be  found  in  a  street  which 
rejoices  in  the  title  of  odos  Ogl.  For  a  long  time  I 
puzzled  over  this  mysterious  proper  name  Ogl  in  vain. 
It  sounded  so  strange  after  the  classical  designations  of 
the  neighbouring  streets,  all  called  after  some  hero  of  the 
Argonautic  legend — for  it  was  at  lolkos,  just  above  Volo, 
that  the  Argonauts  met,  and  it  was  "  in  the  valleys  of 
Pelion,  with  all  its  waving  foliage,"  that  the  pine  trees 
were  felled  to  build  that  mythical  barque  which  went  in 
quest  of  the  golden  fleece.  "  Street  of  the  Argonauts," 
"Street  of  Peleus,"  "Jason  Street,"  "  lolkos  Street"- — these 
I  recognised  as  old  familiar  friends  of  my  schooldays, 
which  recalled  memories  of  that  opening  passage  of  the 
Medea  which  one  had  to  learn  by  heart  whenever  one 

277 


Travels  and  Politics  in  the  Near  East 

was  late  for  chapel.  But  what  did  odbs  Ogl  mean  ?  At 
last  I  asked  a  Greek,  who  explained  to  me  that  this 
strange  word  Ogl  was  intended  for  the  name  of  the  ill- 
fated  Tunes  correspondent,  Mr.  Ogle,  who  was  killed  at 
the  village  of  Makrinica,  outside  Volo,  just  twenty  years 
ago. 

These  little  villages,  lying  in  the  folds  of  Pelion,  are  the 
great  charm  of  the  landscape  here.  They  gleam  out  from 
among  the  olive  groves  in  the  brilliant  sunshine,  and  give 
an  aspect  of  peace  and  prosperity  to  this  country  which 
it  lacks^at  present.  Under  happier  auspices  one  can  well 
imagine  that  Volo  might  be  one  of  the  finest  towns  in 
the  Near  East.  It  has  the  great  natural  resources  of 
Thessaly,  the  granary  of  Greece,  behind  it.  It  possesses 
ample  space  for  more  streets  and  bigger  wharves,  and 
outside  there  are  the  most  charming  sites  on  the 
mountain  side  for  country  houses.  But  it  will  be  long 
before  Thessaly  recovers  even  the  degree  of  prosperity 
which  it  had  attained  before  the  war.  When  the  Turks, 
without  firing  a  shot,  first  left  the  country  in  1881,  the 
Greeks  said  that  they  had  "  cursed  it  before  leaving." 
Now  that  the  Ottoman  occupiers  have  for  a  second  time 
abandoned  Thessaly,  they  have,  as  is  natural  after  a  war, 
left  it  in  an  impoverished  condition.  But  the  Greek 
Government  may  well  be  thankful  that  the  only  perma- 
nant  record  of  this  second  Turkish  occupation  is  the  set 
of  Thessalian  stamps  which  the  Porte  issued  just  before 
the  evacuation,  as  a  means  of  providing  bakshish  for  the 
unpaid  soldiers  of  the  Sultan. 


278 


CHAPTER  VIII 

GREECE  :    DEMOCRACY   UNLIMITED 

EVERY  Greek  is  a  born  politician,  and  his  idea  of 
politics  is  an  absolute  democracy,  such  as  exists 
in  no  other  country  of  the  Old  World,  and  certainly  not 
in  the  United  States  of  America.  It  is  true  that  the 
Hellenic  people  tolerates  a  monarchy,  but  it  can  hardly 
be  said  to  revere  the  monarch,  and  the  chief  reason  for  the 
existence  of  the  monarchical  form  of  government  among 
the  ultra-democratical  institutions  of  Greece  is,  that  if 
there  were  a  Republic  every  one  would  want  to  be  the 
President.  The  Venetians,  who  knew  the  Greeks  well, 
had  a  proverb  which  said,  "  Every  five  Greeks,  six 
generals."  In  a  community  such  as  this,  where  every 
one  imagines  himself  to  be  as  good  as  his  neighbour, 
the  people  would  never  tolerate  the  elevation  of  a  fellow 
Greek,  chosen  by  the  popular  vote,  above  their  heads.  So 
the  most  sensible  of  them  have  come  to  the  conclusion 
of  the  late  M.  Thiers  in  France,  that  "the  Monarchy 
is  the  best  of  Republics."  Last  year  it  seemed,  indeed, 
for  a  moment,  as  if  King  George  would  have  to  abdicate. 
Such  was  the  sovereign's  unpopularity  at  that  crisis,  that 
his  photographs  and  those  of  his  family  had  disappeared 
from  the  shop  windows,  and  were  carefully  hidden 
away  by  time-serving  tradesmen  in  the  drawers  of  their 
counters,  so  as  to  be  ready  for  the  next  turn  in  the  tide  of 
popular  opinion.  A  stranger  arriving  in  Athens  at  this 
moment,    knowing    nothing   of   the  Greek  Constitution, 

279 


Travels  and  Politics 

might  judge  from  what  he  saw  and  read  that  Greece 
was  governed  by  two  men — Demetrios  RhaUis  and  Con- 
stantine  Smolenski.  As  for  King  George  himself,  he  lay 
perdu  in  his  palace,  while  I  saw  his  subjects  deliberately 
turn  their  backs  on  his  Queen,  as  she  drove  through 
the  streets  on  her  way  to  the  hospitals,  where  the 
wounded  were  patiently  undergoing  without  the  aid  of 
anaesthetics  operations  such  as  made  the  trained  nurses  of 
Europe  almost  faint  to  witness.  History,  indeed,  seemed 
for  a  moment  to  be  on  the  point  of  repeating  itself,  and 
the  second  King  of  Greece  to  be  about  to  share  the  fate 
of  his  exiled  predecessor. 

The  unpopularity  of  King  George  was  not,  as  has  been 
imagined  in  Western  Europe,  entirely  the  result  of  the 
recent  Greek  defeats.  No  doubt  the  impulsive  and 
illogical  Hellenes,  in  the  moment  of  their  bitter  dis- 
appointment, cast  about  for  a  national  scapegoat,  and  hit 
upon  the  King.  But  the  result  of  the  war  was  merely 
the  last  straw.  No  man,  unless  he  be  more  than  human, 
could  possibly  reign  for  thirty-three  years  over  a  nation  so 
democratic  and  so  critical  as  the  Greeks  without  making 
a  certain  number  of  enemies.  Louis  XIV.  said  with  some 
bitterness  that  every  appointment  he  conferred  made 
him  one  ungrateful  and  twenty  discontented  subjects. 
George  1.  might  possibly  agree  with  the  Grand  Monarque, 
only  his  subjects  are  a  hundred  times  more  critical  than 
ever  were  those  of  the  great  French  King.  Every  Greek, 
it  must  never  be  forgotten,  from  the  moment  he  can  talk 
at  all,  examines  according  to  his  lights  every  daily  act  of 
the  Government.  At  first,  of  course,  it  was  the  fashion 
to  extol  King  George  at  the  expense  of  King  Otho,  who 
was  in  his  way  a  considerable  benefactor.  Unlike  his 
successor,  Otho  always  wore  the  national  dress,  even  after 
he  ceased  to  be  King.  But  as  time  went  on  it  became  the 
custom  to  glorify  the  memory  of  the  first  King  of  Greece, 

280 


in   the  Near  East 

whom,  as  we  all  know,  the  Greeks  of  1862  very  uncere- 
moniously sent  about  his  business.  There  were  seasons, 
it  is  true,  when  King  George  was  very  popular,  as,  for 
example,  on  the  occasion  of  the  Olympian  games  and  at 
the  coming  of  age  of  his  eldest  son.  Of  all  members 
of  the  Royal  Family  the  Diddochos,  as  they  call  him,  is 
most  unpopular.  The  people  forget  in  their  indignation 
that  a  young  Prince  without  experience  cannot  be 
expected  to  develop  the  qualities  of  a  great  commander 
by  the  simple  act  of  putting  on  a  uniform.  One 
regrettable  event,  which  changed  the  whole  course  of 
Greek  politics,  also  added  to  the  unpopularity  of  the 
King.  During  the  election  campaign  of  1895  a  dead  set 
was  made  against  the  late  M.  Tricoupis,  at  that  time 
Prime  Minister.  M.  Tricoupis  was  defeated  at  Misso- 
longhi,  retired  from  public  life  in  disgust  at  the  ingrati- 
tude of  his  countrymen,  and  died  at  Cannes,  far  from  the 
land  he  had  so  much  loved  and  to  which  he  had  devoted 
his  life.  At  once  his  followers  raised  the  cry — unjusti- 
fiable, of  course,  but  none  the  less  powerful  on  that 
account — that  the  King  had  caused  his  fall,  and  that 
upon  the  King  it  must  be  avenged.  It  so  happened  that 
about  that  time  there  was  a  secret  agitation  against  the 
sovereign  in  a  place  where  it  might  have  been  least 
expected — in  the  household  of  the  Crown  Prince, 
naturally  without  the  knowledge  of  the  latter,  who  sus- 
pected nothing.  It  was  the  object  of  the  conspirators  to 
make  the  King's  position  sufficiently  difficult  to  force  him 
to  resign  in  favour  of  his  eldest  son,  in  which  case  they 
would  have  obtained  place  and  power,  and  endeavoured 
to  make  him  their  puppet.  Their  schemes  were  frustrated 
by  the  war,  for  the  Greeks  will  never  prefer  the  Crown 
Prince  to  his  father  after  what  then  occurred.  King 
George  might  say  to  his  eldest  son  what  Charles  II.  said 
to  his  brother  when  asked  whether  he  did  not  fear  his 

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own  deposition  :  "They  will  never  depose  me  to  make 
you  King," 

Side  by  side  with  this  conspiracy  there  was  another  and 
far  more  formidable  movement  on  foot.  Every  one  in 
Western  Europe  has  heard  since  the  recent  troubles  of 
the  Etlinike  Hctairia  in  connection  with  the  outbreak  of 
the  war.  But  it  is  not  generally  known  that,  while  the 
"  National  Society  "  existed  mainly  and  avowedly  for  the 
propagation  of  the  "Great  Greek  Idea"  of  territorial 
expansion,  it  also  fostered  secretly,  and  even  without  the 
knowledge  of  many  of  its  own  members,  an  anti-dynastic 
propaganda.  This  latter  object  was  sedulously  kept 
secret  from  the  eminently  respectable  personages,  the 
well-to-do  lawyers,  the  patriotic  men  of  business,  and 
eminent  men  of  letters,  whose  names  were,  so  to  say, 
"  on  the  direction  "  of  the  Society.  They  subscribed  to 
its  funds  under  the  impression  that  they  were  supporting 
the  great  gospel  of  Hellenism,  according  to  which  the 
Greek  standard  should  once  more  wave  over  Constanti- 
nople when  a  Constantine  was  King  and  a  Sophia  was 
Queen.  But  the  wire-pullers  of  the  movement  aimed  at 
the  dynasty's  destruction  as  well,  and  endeavoured 
stealthily  to  divert  the  energies  of  the  Society  into  this 
very  different  channel.  Meanwhile  the  Ethnike  Hetaina, 
elaborately  organised  in  sections  of  twenty  or  thirty 
members,  was  spread  like  a  net  all  over  the  country.  It 
had  its  agents  in  all  the  Government  offices,  as  was  proved 
when  one  evening  an  important  secret  official  document 
was  published  in  a  newspaper  known  to  be  in  the  con- 
fidence of  the  Society.  It  had  its  emissaries  in  the  Palace 
itself,  as  the  King  learnt  to  his  dismay  when  one  morning 
on  entering  his  study,  he  saw  on  his  table  a  large  packet 
of  papers  addressed  to  him  by  this  mysterious  body.  In 
vain  he  sought  to  discover  the  hand  which  had  placed 
the  packet  there  ;  but  from  that  moment  he  recognised 

282 


in  the  Near   East 

the   power   of    this    organisation,    and    began    to    make 
inquiries  about  its  aims  and  methods. 

Then  came  the  Cretan  insurrection  and  the  Turkish 
War.  That  the  King  went  to  war  voluntarily  can  hardly 
be  believed,  though  we  may  dismiss  with  incredulity  all 
the  absurd  stories  about  his  pecuniary  speculations  at  that 
time,  which,  I  was  told  in  Athens,  owed  their  origin  to 
the  anti-dynastic  party  in  Greece.  But,  well-informed  as 
he  must  have  been  by  virtue  of  his  family  connections 
abroad,  the  King  had  far  better  means  than  his  subjects 
of  knowing  that  Greece  would  fight  alone.  Having  once 
yielded  to  the  popular  clamour  for  war,  he  became  a 
voluble  exponent  of  the  national  enthusiasm.  Sympathetic 
and  sensational  journalists,  who  at  that  time  abounded  in 
Athens,  received  his  confidences,  and  the  world  witnessed 
the  ridiculous  spectacle  of  the  newspapers  dictating  the 
policy  of  the  nation  !  It  would,  perhaps,  have  been 
more  dignified  in  the  King  to  have  resigned,  rather  than 
advocate  a  policy  which  in  his  Iieart  he  could  not  have 
approved.  He  did,  indeed,  tell  M.  Esslen,  a  well-known 
lawyer,  that  if  Greece  considered  his  presence  as  contrary 
to  the  national  welfare,  he  was  ready  to  leave  the  country 
with  all  his  family,  rather  than  that  a  single  drop  of  blood 
should  be  shed  on  his  account.  It  may  be  remembered 
that  Leopold  I.,  King  of  the  Belgians,  who  might  have 
been  first  King  of  the  Greeks,  said  the  same  thing  to  the 
Belgian  Republicans  in  1848,  and  retained  his  throne  to 
the  end  of  his  days.  But  the  stolid  Belgians  are  easier  to 
govern  than  the  nimble-witted  Hellenes,  and  Leopold 
was  wise  when  he  preferred  Brussels  to  Athens.  So 
strong  was  the  popular  feeling  against  King  George  at 
one  moment  during  the  war,  that  the  Royal  liveries  were 
actually  altered  from  blue  and  white  to  a  less  striking 
colour,  so  as  not  to  excite  hostile  demonstrations  against 
members  of  the  Royal  Family.     Queen  Olga,  in  spite  of 

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her  great  charity,  has  never  been  very  popular  ;  for  she  is 
a  Russian,  and  the  Greeks  have  no  particular  reason  to 
love  the  nation  which  has  systematically  pursued  the 
policy  of  keeping  the  Hellenic  kingdom  small.  All  the 
Tsar's  advocacy  of  Prince  George's  candidature  in  Crete 
will  scarcely  obliterate  this  anti-Russian  feeling  from  the 
Greek  mind.  One  incident  narrated  to  me  by  an  eye- 
witness may  be  cited  as  a  proof  of  the  Queen's  want  of 
tact  in  this  matter.  Two  years  ago,  when  a  Russian 
vessel  was  at  Phaleron,  she  lunched  and  had  herself 
photographed  on  board,  a  compliment  she  had  never 
paid  to  any  Greek  vessel.  The  King  has  certainly  more 
tact  than  that.  He  knows  his  Greeks,  and  has  taken 
their  measure  tolerably  accurately.  He  weathered  the 
storm  of  last  year  satisfactorily,  and  now  has  a  chance 
such  as  he  has  never  had  before.  For  this  year  a  great 
change  has  come  over  the  public  mind  of  Greece.  The 
Greeks  are,  indeed,  always  the  same  in  temperament  and 
in  character.  But  the  disasters  of  the  Thessalian  and 
Epirote  campaign  have  not  been  without  their  lessons  for 
the  vanquished,  and  it  is  pleasant  for  those  who  wish  well 
to  Hellas,  to  find  that  at  last  there  is  a  general  and 
apparently  practical  desire  among  the  Greeks  to  set  their 
house  in  order  and  leave  "the  grand  idea"  for  the  present 
to  take  care  of  itself.  The  extremely  favourable  issue  of 
the  Greek  loan,  the  evacuation  of  Thessaly  by  the  Turks, 
and  the  ample  proofs,  afforded  by  the  war,  that  the  whole 
system  of  administration  urgently  needed  reform  and  was 
the  cause,  rather  than  any  one  man,  be  he  king,  com- 
mander, or  statesman,  of  the  Greek  collapse  last  year — all 
these  things  have  contributed  to  bring  about  the  present 
more  satisfactory  state  of  things.  But  of  all  the  remark- 
able contrasts  between  my  two  last  visits,  none  is  so 
extraordinary  as  that  which  has  taken  place  in  the  posi- 
tion of  the  King.     He,  and  he  alone,  this  year  occupied 

284 


in  the  Near  East 

the  columns  of  the  Greek  papers ;  his  tour  round  the 
Peloponnesus  was  the  theme  of  every  leading  article  and 
every  conversation — for  in  Greece  all  conversation  hinges 
on  politics — and  it  is  to  him  that  the  people  are  looking 
for  political  and  administrative  salvation.  Now,  for  the 
first  time  in  his  reign,  King  George  has  his  chance,  and 
it  will  be  interesting  to  see  what  use  he  will  make  of  it. 

The  cause  of  this  sudden  reaction  was  not  merely  the 
mad  attempt  of  two  crack-brained  wretches  to  take  the 
life  of  their  sovereign,  although  the  personal  courage, 
displayed  by  the  King  on  that  occasion,  undoubtedly 
counted  for  something  with  those  who  remembered  the 
Crown  Prince's  generalship  in  the  war.  A  far  more 
potent  reason  for  the  King's  present  popularity  was  the 
discovery  that  Europe  would  have  done  very  little  for 
Greece  in  the  council-chamber,  and  still  less  on  the 
Stock  Exchange,  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  influential 
relatives  of  the  Greek  ruler.  King  George,  who  is  well 
acquainted  with  the  Greek  character,  has  been  shrewd 
enough  to  lay  special  stress  on  this  point  in  the  speeches 
that  he  has  been  delivering  up  and  down  the  Pelopon- 
nesus. For  your  average  Greek,  little  as  he  cares  for  the 
pomp  and  circumstance  of  Royalty,  is  fully  alive  to  the 
value  of  a  dynastic  connection  which  carries  weight  in 
the  money-markets  of  Europe.  Besides,  there  is  an 
almost  universal  conviction  among  those  Greeks,  whom 
I  have  met,  that  there  is  no  party  leader  of  sufficient 
ability  and  force  of  character  to  give  the  country  the 
reforms  which  it  urgently  needs,  and  that  in  the  general 
lack  of  statesmen,  which  Greece  shares  with  Italy,  there 
is  no  one  to  fall  back  upon  but  the  King.  Having  met 
all  the  most  prominent  Greek  politicians  of  the  day,  I 
must  say  that  I  do  not  discern  among  them  a  Cavour,  a 
Gladstone,  or  a  Bismarck.  In  this  respect  Greece  re- 
sembles most  other  states  at  the  present  time,  and  it  is 

285 


M.   DELYANXIS. 


Travels  and  Politics  in  the  Near  East 

remarkable  that  there,  as  in  Italy,  the  people  have  become 
somewhat  disgusted  with  the  politicians,  and  are  anxious 
to  see  the  King  govern  as  well  as  reign. 

Since  the  death  of  M.  Charilaos  Tricoupis  in  the  spring 
of  1896,  and,  indeed,  since  his  retirement  from  public  life 
a  few  months  before  that  sad  event,  the  political  system 
of  Greece  has  been  changed  from  a  perpetual  duel 
between  two  statesmen  to  a  state  of  chaos,  in  which  one 
looks  with  anxiety  for  a  coming  man.  The  removal  of 
his  great  rival  left  M.  Theodore  Delyannis  master  of  the 
field,  with  a  large  majority  and  no  considerable  rival  ;  and, 
if  it  had  not  been  for  the  war,  he  might  be  Prime  Minister 
now — an  office  which  he  has  already  held  three  times. 
His  opponents  tell  you  that  he  is  "finished,"  but  Greek 
politicians  are  quickly  rehabilitated,  so  that  M.  Delyannis 
will,  doubtless,  be  at  the  head  of  another  Ministry  before 
he  has  done  with  politics.  In  point  of  experience,  he  is, 
now  that  M.  Tricoupis  is  gone,  easily  the  first  of  living 
Hellenic  politicians.  He  told  me  that  he  had  been  fifty- 
five  years  in  public  life,  which  he  entered  when  M.  Rhallis, 
his  successor,  was  only  two  years  old.  And  M.  Delyannis' 
experience  includes  two  years  spent  at  the  Greek  Legation 
in  Paris,  where  another  M.  Delyannis,  his  first  cousin  once 
removed,  now  holds  sway,  as  well  as  the  famous  interlude 
in  the  Congress  of  Berlin,  when  he  and  M.  Rhangabe 
were  admitted  to  plead  the  claims  of  Greece,  so  tardily 
recognised  by  Europe  three  years  later  by  the  cession  of 
Thessaly  and  part  of  Epirus.  M.  Delyannis  ought,  there- 
fore, to  know  more  about  foreign  affairs  than  any  of  his 
rivals,  for  he  has  spent  most  of  his  life  in  transacting 
business  with  the  Great  Powers.  Until  the  recent  crisis, 
he  used  his  experience  of  la  haute  politique  to  make  him- 
self the  representative  of  Greek  Jingoism  as  against  the 
more  moderate  and  sober  views  of  M.  Tricoupis.  In 
season  and  out  of  season  M.  Delyannis,  who  had  gained 

287 


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great  fame  by  the  cession  of  Thessaly,  proclaimed  the 
"  great  Greek  idea,"  and  talked  big  about  Byzantine 
Emperors  and  the  future  of  the  Panhellenic  race.  It  was 
he  who  brought  his  country  to  the  verge  of  war  with 
Turkey  in  1886,  and  it  was  he,  too,  who  in  October,  1890, 
was  carried  into  office  by  the  wave  of  excitement  which 
the  Cretan  question  had  created,  a  position  from  which 
he  was  summarily  dismissed  by  the  King  in  March,  1892. 
But  during  the  late  crisis  M.  Delyannis,  who  had  learned 
wisdom  since  1886,  was  not  at  all  warlike  in  his  language 
or  his  policy  ;  and,  though  much  blamed  by  his  fellow- 
countrymen  for  the  very  inadequate  state  of  the  army, 
certainly  did  not  desire  hostilities,  but  was  forced  into 
them  by  public  opinion.  No  doubt  a  strong  man  would 
have  stemmed  the  tide  ;  possibly,  as  some  Greeks  say,  M. 
Tricoupis  could  have  done  so.  But  M.  Delyannis  is  not 
a  particularly  strong  man.  Indeed,  all  his  life  he  has  been 
the  mere  negation  of  his  most  prominent  opponent  for  the 
time  being,  and  has  never  stood  out  as  a  positive  factor 
in  the  political  equation.  He  lives  very  simply  at  a  small 
house  in  the  Zeno  Street,  where  I  visited  him,  consoled 
for  his  temporary  eclipse  by  the  society  of  his  two  nieces, 
who  keep  house  for  him.  Born  in  Arcadia,  he  is  not  by 
any  means  a  person  of  Arcadian  simplicity.  His  personal 
appearance  is  strongly  suggestive  of  a  very  ruse'  old  family 
solicitor,  whose  white  whiskers  inspire  awe  and  respect, 
and  whose  words  are  carefully  weighed.  As  a  Parlia- 
mentary tactician  M.  Delyannis  is  hard  to  beat,  and  his 
tactics  since  his  fall  from  office  have  been  to  "  lie  low  and 
say  nuffin',"  save  when  he  compassed  the  defeat  of  M. 
Rhallis  just  a  year  ago.  He  will  talk  to  you  most  affably 
about  his  relatives,  but  not  a  word  about  his  relations 
with  the  King.  He  comes  of  a  large  family,  for  he  had 
five  brothers  and  two  sisters,  most  of  them,  as  he  patheti- 
cally says,  "  now  belonging  to  the  past  generation."     He 

288 


in   the   Near  East 

represents,  with  a  nephew  as  his  colleague,  also  called 
Theodore  like  himself,  the  pocket  constituency  of  the 
family — Gortynia,  in  the  Peloponnesus,  which  is  quite 
unassailable.  He  deplored  in  fluent  French,  learned  at 
Paris,  his  inability  to  talk  English.  For  four  long  years, 
he  told  me,  he  struggled  manfully  at  our  language.  He 
read  English  books  and  papers,  attended  Sunday  services 
at  the  English  Church  in  Athens  to  accustoifi  his  ear  to 
the  sound  of  our  strange  consonants,  and  at  last  hoped 
that  he  had  mastered  the  tongue.  But  a  visit  to  London 
shattered  his  hopes  ;  "  for,"  as  he  said  with  a  smile, 
"  when  I  found  that  the  cabmen  could  not  understand 
me,  I  abandoned  the  attempt  to  make  myself  intelli- 
gible." A  polite  remark  that  the  London  cabman  is  not 
the  best  judge  of  English  failed  to  reassure  the  troubled 
statesman,  who  regretted  that  we  had  adhered  in  our 
schools  and  colleges  to  the  Erasmian  pronunciation  of 
Greek.  M.  Delyannis  was  the  founder  of  a  society  in 
Paris  for  encouraging  the  modern  pronunciation  of 
ancient  Greek,  and  hopes  that  Oxford  and  Cambridge 
too  will  reform  the  existing  method.  A  knowledge  of 
Aristophanes  would  then  enable  one  to  understand  a 
debate  in  the  Bonk'. 

M.  Demetrios  G.  Rhallis,  who  succeeded  M.  Delyannis 
as  Prime  Minister  during  the  critical  period  of  the  war,  is 
in  most  respects  the  opposite  of  his  predecessor.  Born  in 
Athens  fifty-three  years  ago,  M.  Rhallis  does  not  look  much 
more  than  forty.  His  wiry  frame  and  the  energy  expressed 
in  the  muscles  of  his  face  indicate  that  he  possesses  the 
necessary  physique  for  the  task  of  government,  and  as  he 
speaks  his  bright  blue  eyes  seem  to  look  his  visitor  through 
and  through.  He  has  been  for  twenty-seven  years  a 
member  of  the  Greek  Parliament,  during  the  whole  of 
which  time  he  has  represented  Attica,  without  having 
experienced   a    single  electoral  defeat.      This  unbroken 

289  U 


M.    KHAI.LIS. 


Travels  and  Politics  in  the  Near  East 

series  of  successes  in  his  native  district  testifies  to  the 
great  local  popularity  of  the  man,  although  "  Rhallism  " 
is  not  yet  a  great  factor  in  Greek  politics  outside  Attica. 
M.  Rhallis,  who,  like  many  other  Greek  deputies,  is  a 
lawyer  by  profession,  had  not  been  long  in  the  Bonlc 
before  he  made  his  mark.  At  first  he  attached  himself  to 
M.  Tricoupis,  and  that  statesman  rewarded  his  abilities  by 
twice  including  him  in  his  cabinets.  But  M.  Rhallis 
eventually  found  that  the  one-man  rule  of  the  "  Greek 
Gladstone  "  was  not  compatible  with  his  own  plans.  He 
accordingly  seceded  from  his  chief  and  formed  a  third 
party  of  his  own,  consisting  mainly  of  the  members  for 
Athens  and  the  neighbourhood,  and  numbering  at  the 
last  general  election  of  1895  some  thirty  votes  out  of  a 
total  of  207.  So  long  as  M.  Tricoupis  was  in  office,  his 
former  lieutenant  combined  with  M.  Delyannis,  the  chief 
of  the  regular  Opposition,  to  depose  him.  But  when  the 
classic  constituency  of  Missolonghi  at  last  rejected  the 
most  distinguished  of  Greek  statesmen,  and  M.  Delyannis 
became  Premier,  M.  Rhallis  did  not  support  his  old  ally 
of  the  former  Opposition.  With  the  death  of  M. 
Tricoupis,  he  saw  that  the  field  was  open  to  a  new  man, 
and  began  to  develop  a  natural  ambition  for  the  Premier- 
ship. Already  in  1893  he  had  collaborated  with  M. 
Sotiropoulos  in  forming  a  stop-gap  Ministry,  and  when 
the  crisis  of  last  year  became  acute,  he  saw  his  chance 
and  took  it.  Hastily  seizing  a  rifle  and  donning  a  cart- 
ridge belt,  he  left  Athens,  accompanied  by  a  trusty 
companion,  to  see  for  himself  the  condition  of  the  army 
at  the  front.  The  report  which  he  brought  back  caused 
an  immense  sensation  and  led  to  the  downfall  of  the 
Delyannis  administration.  Then  M.  Rhallis,  to  use  his 
own  phrase — a  phrase  which  has  become  historical — 
informed  his  political  friends  that  he  was  "  the  Prime 
Minister  clearly  designated  by  events,"  and  stepped  into 

291 


Travels   and   Politics 

the  coveted  position.     From  having  been  a  severe  critic 
of   the  King,  he  became  the  strongest  supporter  of  his 
Sovereign.      On    the    critical    occasion    when    the    mob, 
excited  by  tlie  news  of  the  Greek  rout  and  eager  to  vent 
its  fury  on  the  dynasty,  stormed  the  steps  of  the  Palace, 
and  seemed  likely  to  set  fire  to  the  building,  M.  Rhallis 
mounted  on  the  box  of  a  carriage,  and  harangued  the 
people    with  all  the  eloquence  of   which   he    is    master, 
urging   them   to   be   guided   by   his   advice.     The    mob 
listened,  as  it  might  have  done  to  Alcibiades  of  old  "  com- 
manding silence  by  the  majesty  of  his  gestures,"  and  the 
throne  was  saved.     From  that  moment  he  became,  for  all 
practical  purposes,  the  Greek  Government,  and  as  one  of 
his  admirers  said,  "  he  had  only  to  put  his  head  out  of 
his  window  and  address  the  people,  and  they  would  do 
whatever  he  directed."     But  M.  Rhallis  informed  me  that 
he   had  no  intention  of    being,  as   MM.  Tricoupis    and 
Delyannis  were,  the  autocrat  of  his  cabinet.     He  thought 
that  Greece  had  had  enough  of  that  system,  and  his  aim, 
he   said,    was   to    be    simply   a    Minister   like   the   other 
Ministers,  taking  the  advice  of  his  colleagues,  and  formu- 
lating the  opinion  of  the  whole  cabinet.     A  confirmed 
Liberal,    his    domestic    programme    was,    and    still    is, 
decentralisation,  for  he  maintains  that  Greece  is  governed 
on  a  far  too  highly  centralised  system,  which  does  not 
give  full  play  to  local  government.     That  his  tenure  of 
the  Premiership,  at  perhaps  the  most  critical  period  in 
the  nation's  history,  was  successful,  can  hardly  be  denied. 
His  admirers  proclaimed  him  a  second  Gambetta  ;  and 
there  certainly  is  a  striking  resemblance  between  the  two 
men.      M.    Rhallis,    like    the   great    French    orator,  was 
brought     into    prominence    by    a    disastrous    war  ;    like 
Gambetta,    he    has    endeavoured    to    reorganise    a    van- 
quished army  and  save  a  defeated  nation.    Like  Gambetta, 
too,  he  has  all  the  arts  of  the  popular  speaker,  though  as 

292 


in   the   Near   East 

a  parliamentarian  he  is  not  the  equal  of  M.  Delyannis 
with  his  more  than  half  a  century  of  public  life  behind 
him.  On  the  other  hand,  M.  Rhallis'  enemies  accuse 
him  of  lack  of  conviction,  and  say  that  he  is  too  impres- 
sionable. Some  of  them,  going  back  to  Aristophanes  and 
Thucydides  for  an  analogy,  pretend  to  have  found  in  the 
demagogue  Cleon  the  prototype  of  the  late  Prime  Minister. 
Others,  seeking  inspiration  from  French  literature,  declare 
that  Sardou's  Rabagas,  the  democrat  turned  Royalist,  fits 
M.  Rhallis  to  the  life.  Personally,  I  regard  him  as  a 
naturally  shrewd  man  of  great  powers  of  work,  who  is 
fully  aware  that  Greek  democracy  has  not  greatly  changed 
since  the  author  of  The  Kitigltts  laughed  at  the  foibles 
of  fickle  Demos,  enamoured  of  the  sausage-seller.  He 
accordingly  accepted  his  defeat  last  October  with  philo- 
sophic resignation,  and  though  many  of  his  political 
friends  have  deserted  him,  I  found  him  when  I  revisited 
him  this  year  in  his  private  office  in  the  Boulevard  de 
rUniversite,  hopeful  for  the  future.  He  spoke  with- 
out the  slightest  animus  of  the  German  Emperor,  whom 
the  Crown  Princess  Sophia  is  reported  to  have  described, 
not  without  reason,  as  "a  greater  enemy  than  the  Sultan" 
to  her  adopted  country.  M.  Rhallis  expressed  the  opinion 
that,  from  a  German  point  of  view,  the  Emperor  had  acted 
very  skilfully,  and  that  the  Kaiser's  main  objection  to  the 
Greeks  was  that  they  had  not  paid  their  debts.  He 
claimed  the  success  of  King  George's  journey  round  the 
Peloponnesus  as  a  complete  triumph  for  the  policy  which 
he  had  advocated  in  1893,  and  urged  immediate  reforms. 
Like  some  other  statesmen,  he  said  that  he  was  surprised 
at  the  foreign  policy  of  Great  Britain,  the  weakness  of 
which  he  attributed  to  Lord  Salisbury's  health.  Being 
himself  one  of  the  few  self-made  Greek  politicians,  who 
has  made  his  way  by  his  own  push,  he  has  naturally  a 
fellow-feeling  for   Mr.  Chamberlain.     For  it  is  a  curious 

293 


Travels   and   Politics 

fact  that  in  democratic  Greece,  where  every  one  thinks 
himself  as  good  as  his  neiglibour  and  every  title,  save  the 
simple  KvpuHj,  or  "  Mister,"  and  the  old  Venetian  titles  of 
the  Ionian  Islands,  is  prohibited  by  the  Constitntion,  the 
system  of  keeping  politics  in  the  hands  of  a  few  old 
"  Revolntion  "  families  prevails  no  less  than  in  Whiggish 
England.  Just  as  even  our  most  advanced  Premiers 
always  concede  a  certain  number  of  offices  as  a  matter  of 
course  to  the  great  Whig  houses,  so  the  descendants  of 
the  men  of  1821  have  still  the  lion's  share  of  electoral 
influence  in  Greece.  This  "  feudal  system  "  of  regarding 
constituencies  as  family  pocket-boroughs  is  much  de- 
nounced by  Hellenic  reformers,  because,  as  they  say,  it 
gives  new  men  no  chance,  and  it  is  certamly  a  curious 
testimony  to  the  influence  of  the  hereditary  principle  that 
in  a  country,  which  possesses  no  second  chamber  and  no 
aristocracy,  an  hereditary  race  of  political  leaders  should 
have  sprung  up.  But  even  without  this  hereditary  con- 
nection, and  in  spite  of  his  present  diminished  following, 
I  believe  that  IVI.  Rhallis  will  ere  long  return  to  power, 
though  he  may  not  be  successful  at  the  next  appeal  to  the 
country.  But  ere  that,  he  must  gain  more  influence  out- 
side the  locality,  which  has  shown  the  same  confidence 
in  him  that  Birmingham  has  in  his  British  prototype.  In 
one  respect,  however,  M.  Rhallis  totally  differs  from  Mr. 
Chamberlain.  The  Greek  ex-Premier  is  very  democratic 
in  his  attire.  Not  for  him  the  pomp  of  the  top-hat ;  M. 
Rhallis  prefers  the  brown  felt  covering  of  the  plain  citizen, 
which  accompanied  him  in  his  Ministerial  walks  and 
hung  above  him  at  Cabinet  Councils,  no  less  than  in  his 
hours  of  private  legal  work.  This  hat  was  a  very  familiar 
feature  in  Athens  during  the  disturbances  of  last  year,  and, 
at  first,  somewhat  scandalised  the  foreign  journalists, 
accustomed  to  the  top-hat  of  "  European  "  states- 
manship.      But    the    democratic    Athenians    liked   their 

294 


in   the   Near   East 

Premier  all  the  better,  because  he  adhered  to  the  headgear 
which  he  had  worn  as  a  simple  deputy.  For  a  Greek 
irpcodvirovpyog  must  be  like  his  fellow-citizens,  and  not  seek 
to  add  to  his  civic  stature  by  the  assumption  of  a  black 
silk  "  cylinder." 

In  one  very  important  respect  does  a  Greek  Prime 
Minister  differ  from  statesmen  who  hold  that  exalted 
position  in  England.  He  must  be  accessible  in  season 
and  out  of  season  to  all  persons,  who  may  desire  to  see 
him  on  business — the  nation's  or  their  own.  When  I 
used  to  interview  M.  Rhallis  during  the  war,  I  was 
amazed  at  the  miscellaneous  crowd  of  Greeks  who 
wasted  his  precious  time.  In  Greece,  the  ordinary  labours 
of  a  Prime  Minister,  heavy  as  they  are,  are  immensely 
increased  by  the  existence  of  that  "spoils'  system  "  with 
which  American  democracy  has  made  us  familiar. 
Whenever  a  new  Government  comes  into  oftice,  its 
advent  is  followed  by  a  complete  clearance  of  the  civil 
service,  in  order  to  provide  posts  for  the  political  friends 
of  the  incoming  Minister.  Even  the  poor  creatures  who 
sweep  out  the  public  schools  are  dependent  for  their 
bread  upon  the  fate  of  Ministries  in  the  Chamber  of 
Deputies  at  Athens.  I  have  heard  instances  of  librarians 
and  professors  of  archaeology  being  appointed,  not  for 
their  learning  but  for  their  political  services.  No 
wonder  that  every  Greek  is  a  politician,  and  that  the 
general  interest  in  the  game  of  ins  and  outs  never  flags. 
The  mob  of  place-hunters  killed  a  former  President  of 
the  United  States,  who  after  having  endured  for  years  a 
diet  of  "hard  cider"  in  a  log-cabin  without  injury  to  his 
health,  succumbed  in  a  month  to  the  "hand-shakings" 
of  the  White  House.  So  even  the  most  robust  of  Greek 
statesmen  might  well  quail  before  the  constant  invasion 
of  followers,  whose  "claims"  he  cannot  afford  to  forget. 
The  late  M.  Tricoupis,  w^hose  sister,  Miss  Sophie,  did  the 

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Travels   and   Politics 

"hand-shaking"  for  him,  frequently  worked,  when 
Premier,  fourteen  hours  at  a  stretch,  and  contented 
himseU'  with  only  four  hours  of  sleep.  But  M.  Rhallis 
had  on  his  shoulders  in  addition  to  the  normal  business 
of  the  Premiership  and  the  Ministry  of  Marine,  which 
he  combined  with  it,  the  arduous  labours  of  negotiating 
terms  of  peace,  the  herculean  task  of  providing  for  the 
thousands  of  homeless  Cretan  and  Thessalian  refugees, 
and  the  pressing  necessity  of  disarming  and  discharging 
the  Garibaldians,  whose  presence  in  the  excitable  Greek 
capital  he  justly  considered  a  source  of  public  danger. 
So  his  ante-room  used  to  present  the  strangest  contrasts, 
such  as  that  of  no  other  European  statesman  could  show. 
One  day  while  waiting  there,  I  had  opposite  me  three 
stalwart  sailors,  clad  in  the  picturesque  costume  of  the 
^gean  Islanders — the  baggy  dark-blue  trousers,  the  high 
boots,  the  scarlet  cap  and  the  blue  tassel  which  mark  the 
mariners  of  Psara,  or  Spetsai,  or  "  Hydra's  isle,"  those 
three  bright  gems  of  Greek  naval  story.  One  old  fellow, 
whose  hair  was  white  as  snow,  might  well  have  fought 
as  a  lad  with  Kanaris,  against  the  Capitan  Pasha,  and  his 
fine  profile  recalled  the  picture  of  that  great  adm.iral  in 
TJic  Nautical  Almanack  which  formed  almost  the  sole 
ornament  of  the  walls.  Side  by  side  were  a  priest  of  the 
Greek  Church  and  an  Athenian  deputy,  the  former  clad 
from  head  to  foot  in  black,  his  dark  eyes  flashing  as  he 
talked  politics  with  his  eminently  modern  neighbour, 
who  was  dressed  in  the  ^\'estern  style  and  thoroughly 
equipped  with  all  the  arts  of  lobbying.  Petticoated  cvzonol 
and  shepherds  of  Hymettos,  in  their  rough  frieze  coa'ts 
and  tasselled  tsaroncliia,  with  here  and  there  an  official  in 
naval  uniform,  formed  picturesque  groups.  There  was 
a  little  knot  of  journalists  from  the  various  Western 
capitals,  and  here  and  there  an  Athenian  confrere,  quite 
convinced  that  he   could  take   the  Premier's  place  at  a 

296 


in   the   Near   East 

moment's  notice  and  settle  the  business  of  the  nation 
with  the  same  ease  that  he  dashed  off  his  dithyrambic 
"leaders."  Some  of  the  Premier's  visitors  did  not  even 
condescend  to  the  formality  of  sending  in  a  card,  but 
entered  his  sanctum  when  they  felt  inclined,  quite  heed- 
less of  the  fact  that  some  one  else  was  interviewing  the 
Minister  at  the  moment.  It  cannot  be  easy  to  transact 
the  business  of  a  nation  under  such  circumstances. 

M.  Alexandres  T.  Zaimis,  M.  Rhallis'  successor  in  the 
Premiership,  is  fortunate  in  that  his  lot  has  fallen  upon 
quieter  times.  M.  Zaimis  is  what  the  Americans  would 
call  "a  distinguished  father  candidate,"  for  he  comes 
of  an  eminent  political  family,  as  his  father  was  also  in 
his  time  more  than  once  Prime  Minister  of  Greece,  and 
his  grandfather  was  one  of  the  heroes  of  the  War  of 
Independence.  Educated  in  Paris,  where  he  sat  at  the 
feet  of  Gambetta,  he  is  a  man  of  Western  culture  and 
ideas,  and,  unlike  many  Greek  politicians,  possesses  con- 
siderable private  means,  which  make  him  independent  of 
the  spoils  of  ofttce.  Previous  to  his  present  appointment 
M.  Zaimis  occupied  the  post  of  Speaker  of  the  Boiilc,  and 
he  preserves  as  a  party-leader  the  judicial  manner  which 
befitted  his  former  office.  The  Greeks  say  of  him  that  he 
does  not  possess  sufficient  parliamentary  eloquence  for  a 
country  which  clings  to  the  traditions  of  Demosthenes 
and  ^schines.  The  nephew  of  M.  Delyannis,  he  does 
not  share  that  statesman's  opinions,  and  although  he  was 
regarded  in  the  light  of  a  stop-gap  at  the  time  of  his 
appointment,  he  has  managed  to  remain  in  office  for  a 
year,  without  committing  any  great  mistake.  When  I 
saw  him  at  the  Foreign  Office,  he  struck  me  as  an 
excellent  man  of  business,  whose  very  quiet  manner 
particularly  impressed  me  in  this  country  of  the  orators. 
He  enjoys  the  confidence  of  the  King,  and,  if  not  a 
genius,  has  plenty  of  common  sense.     In  appearance  the 

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Travels  and  Politics  in  the  Near  East 

Greek  Premier  is  h  short  man,  with  greyish  hair,  whose 
glasses  give  him  a  studious  air. 

M.  Za'imis  has  been  much  assisted  in  the  work  of 
reorganising  Greece  by  M.  Streit,  the  excellent  Minister 
of  Finance,  who  acquired  great  experience  as  director  of 
the  National  Bank,  and  is  one  of  those  financiers  from 
whom  King  George,  himself  no  tyro  in  money  matters, 
delights  to  choose  his  counsellors.  Probably  the  best,  and 
certainly  the  most  philosophic  of  Greek  politicians,  is  M. 
Deligeorgis,  who  may  be  the  next  Prime  Minister.  M. 
Deligeorgis,  who  is  the  head  of  a  small  party,  belongs, 
like  M.  Za'imis,  to  a  political  family  and  lives  in  a  large 
house,  which  contains  an  admirable  political  library. 
Like  the  Premier,  he  is  quiet  in  manner,  and  his  con- 
versation is  much  more  suggestive  of  wide  political  study 
than  that  of  the  average  politician.  He  has  a  firm  grasp 
of  the  situation  and  is  one  of  the  strongest  advocates  of 
reform  by  means  of  the  throne.  Another  sensible  states- 
man, M.  Sotiropoulos,  who  was  Premier  for  a  short 
time  in  1893,  I  saw  carried  to  his  grave  the  day  that 
Mr.  Gladstone  died. 

Among  other  Greek  public  men  the  most  remarkable  is 
perhaps  M.  Constantine  Karapanos,  the  member  for  Arta, 
and  leader  of  a  small  following,  who  has  made  a  large 
fortune,  and  lives  in  a  palatial  mansion  off  the  Rue  du 
Stade.  M.  Karapanos  is  generally  regarded  as  the  first 
living  authority  on  that  mysterious  subject  Greek  finance 
— which  no  human  being,  except  M.  Tricoupis  and  M. 
Streit,  has  ever  thoroughly  understood,  while  even  M. 
Tricoupis  could  never  explain  it  satisfactorily  to  any  one 
else.  M.  Karapanos  has  succeeded  so  well  in  the 
conduct  of  his  own  business  that  his  admirers  hope  that 
he  will  one  day  be  equally  successful  in  conducting  that 
of  the  nation.  He  was  the  chief  critic  of  M.  Tricoupis' 
Budgets,  and  hulds  views  on  the  most  recondite  questions 

298 


GENERAL   SMOLENSKI. 
(Minister  of  War.) 


Travels  and  Politics 

of  la  haute  finance.  He  is  also  an  ardent  archaeologist, 
and  it  was  he  who  excavated  the  remains  of  Dodona  in 
1876  at  his  own  expense,  subsequently  publishing  the 
results  of  his  labours  in  a  quarto  volume,  entitled  Dodone 
et  ses  Rnines.  Some  critics  assert  that  M.  Karapanos  is 
handicapped  by  his  large  means  in  the  race  for  political 
honours — a  charge  which  cannot  be  brought  against 
many  Greek  statesmen. 

Although  not  a  politician.  General  Constantine 
Smolenski,  the  present  Minister  of  War,  is  better  known 
to  the  world  than  any  other  Greek  public  man.  During 
the  war,  Constantine  Smolenski  was  undoubtedly  the 
hero  of  all  Greece.  The  King  promoted  him  by  a  royal 
decree  to  the  rank  of  Lieutenant-General  in  recogni- 
tion of  his  services,  and  the  news  was  received  with 
the  utmost  satisfaction  by  a  whole  nation  of  admirers. 
Every  shop-window  in  Athens  contained  a  portrait  of  the 
popular  commander  ;  even  the  tailors  and  dressmakers 
included  his  picture  among  their  fashion  plates ;  and 
while  there  was  not  one  single  photograph  of  any  member 
of  the  royal  family  to  be  seen  in  the  capital,  the  burly 
form  of  Smolenski  met  you  at  every  turn.  There  were 
Smolenskis  on  horseback,  riding  over  wreaths  of  laurel ; 
Smolenskis  crowned  by  a  figure  of  victory ;  busts  of 
Smolenski  covered  with  medals  and  decorations ;  and 
full-length  portraits  of  the  national  idol  in  a  helmet  of 
gigantic  dimensions,  the  plumes  of  which  were  waving  in 
the  air.  In  the  country  it  was  just  the  same.  At  every 
railway  station  the  newsvendors  did  a  brisk  trade  in 
rough  engravings  of  the  Greek  Napoleon  at  thirty  leptd  a 
piece,  and  no  rustic  kaphcneion  was  complete  without  at 
least  one  image  of  the  "  hero  of  Reveni  and  Velestino,"  as 
his  countrymen  loved  to  call  him.  Listen  to  any  conver- 
sation in  the  streets,  and  you  would  hear  the  name  of 
Smolenski  recurring  with  frequent,  and  almost  damnable, 

300 


in   the   Near  East 

iteration.  In  fact,  compared  with  Smolenski,  the  redoubt- 
able Colonel  Vassos  was  nowhere,  and  the  only  person 
who  came  anywhere  near  him  in  the  popular  estimation 
was  that  Hellenic  Joan  of  Arc,  Helena  Constantinidou, 
who  assumed  male  attire,  and  went  forth,  with  her  long 
hair  hanginfj  down  her  back,  as  standard-bearer  of  the 
army  in  Epirus.  But  even  she  was  a  very  poor  second  to 
Smolenski.  One  Saturday  twenty  thousand  copies  of  a 
penny  biography  of  the  great  man  were  sold  in  Athens — a 
large  sale,  seeing  that  one  of  the  best  Athenian  papers,  the 
AkropoUs,  does  not  claim  to  have  a  larger  circulation  than 
eighteen  thousand  a  day.  Yet  a  couple  of  months  earlier  the 
very  name  of  Smolenski  was  utterly  unknown  outside  the 
limits  of  Greece,  and  even  in  Greece  itself  there  was  some 
doubt  as  to  whether  the  proper  spelling  was  Smolenski  or 
Smolenitz. 

At  the  outset  there  was  considerable  discussion  as  to 
whether  the  national  hero  was  a  Greek  at  all.  His  name 
certainly  is  not  Greek,  and  it  was  stated  thnt  his  family 
was  of  Bavarian  origin  ;  in  other  words,  an  offshoot  of 
that  nation  whose  Emperor  was  more  hated  in  Athens 
than  even  the  Sultan  himself,  for  as  a  Greek  said  to  me, 
nous  detcstons  Ics  aUcuiaiuh  plus  que  les  fuirs.  However, 
the  Smolenski  family  has  publicly  stated  that  the  name  is 
derived  from  Smola,  a  village  in  Macedonia  which  is 
so-called  from  the  suwla  or  "  tar  "  which  is  found  there. 
According  to  another  version,  the  Smolenskis  originally 
came  from  Moschopolis,  a  Greek  town  in  Macedonia 
which  was  destroyed  in  the  last  century  by  the  Albanians. 
Constantine's  grandfather  fled  to  Vienna,  and  subse- 
quently settled  at  Munich,  where  the  present  hero's 
father,  Leonidas,  entered  the  Military  Academy.  When 
the  War  of  Independence  broke  out  in  1821  Leonidas 
Smolenski  took  part  in  the  struggle,  and  after  its  con- 
clusion married  the  daughter  of  an  officer  from  the  island 

301 


Travels   and   Politics 

of  Naxos.  By  her  he  had  two  sons,  the  elder  of  whom  is 
member  for  the  island  of  yEgina  in  the  Greek  Parliament, 
and  was  Minister  of  War  at  the  outbreak  of  the  Cretan 
disturbances — a  post  which  is  now  cccupied  by  his 
younger  brother  Constantine,  who  was  born  at  Athens 
on  September  10/22,  1842,  and  has  therefore  just  com- 
pleted his  56th  year. 

After  finishing  his  ordinary  studies,  young  Smolenski 
developed  a  great  passion  for  a  military  career,  following 
the  example  of  his  father,  who  was  a  good  officer,  and 
twice  held  the  portfolio  of  Minister  of  War  in  the 
Cabinets  of  M.  Bulgaris  and  the  late  M.  Zaimis.  At  the 
age  of  fifteen  he  accordingly  entered  the  Military 
Academy  at  Athens,  which,  however,  he  soon  left,  in 
consequence,  it  is  said,  of  some  juvenile  indiscretions, 
and  proceeded  to  Brussels.  After  six  years'  study  at  the 
Military  School  there  he  returned  to  Athens,  and  received 
his  commission  in  the  Greek  Artillery  at  the  close  of 
1863,  a  moment  when  Greece  had  just  welcomed  King 
George  as  her  sovereign.  Smolenski  obtained  his  pro- 
motion in  the  usual  course,  and  the  year  i868,  which 
witnessed  the  rupture  of  relations  between  Greece  and 
Turkey  in  consequence  of  the  Cretan  insurrection,  found 
him  a  full  lieutenant.  Excited  by  the  sufferings  of  the 
Cretans,  he  went  to  that  distressful  island  as  a  volunteer, 
and  is  said  to  have  greatly  distinguished  himself  by  his 
coolness  and  courage — on  one  occasion  rescuing  (so  the 
story  goes)  a  small  field-piece  single-handed  from  the 
Mussulmans.  At  the  close  of  the  insurrection  in  1869  he 
returned  to  Athens,  whence  he  was  sent  at  the  expense  of 
the  Government  to  Germany  and  France  to  gain  a 
further  and  more  scientific  knowledge  of  the  art  of  war. 
In  Berlin  and  Paris  he  became  acquainted  with  the  lead- 
ing military  men  of  the  day,  and  his  careful  personal 
observations    in    both  capitals  enabled  him  to  prophesy 

-^02 


in   the   Near   East 

the  result  of  the  Franco-German  war.  Four  years  after 
his  return  home  in  1871  he  married  the  daughter  of  a 
distinguished  Greek  author,  by  whom  he  has  three 
daughters.  He  employed  his  leisure  in  studying  military 
books,  of  which  his  library  is  full,  and  in  perusing 
military  periodicals,  so  as  not  to  lose  touch  with  the 
latest  results  of  strategic  science.  He  became  a  major  in 
1 88 1,  and  live  years  later  received  the  gold  cross  of  the 
Knights  of  the  Saviour  in  recognition  of  his  services  on 
the  frontier  during  the  warlike  demonstrations  of  the 
critical  period  which  followed  the  Serbo-Bulgarian  war. 
The  Belgian  and  Servian  Governments  decorated  him  a 
little  later,  and  in  1895  '""^  was  promoted  to  the  rank  of 
colonel  of  the  third  regiment  of  artillery,  the  position 
which  he  occupied  at  the  commencement  of  the  late  war. 
When  the  Zaimis  Ministry  was  formed  in  October  of  last 
year,  he  became  Minister  of  War — the  post  which  he 
still  holds  without  having  thereby  forfeited  his  popularity, 
except  among  the  group  of  officers,  who  form  the  fol- 
lowing of  the  Crown  Prince  and  resent  the  Minister's 
success. 

In  appearance  Smolenski  is  a  stout,  burly  man,  of  a 
determined  expression,  with  a  heavy  moustache  and 
greyish  hair.  He  does  not  look  strikingly  Greek,  and 
might  easily  pass  for  a  German  officer.  It  will  be  seen 
from  the  above  sketch  that  the  most,  in  fact  the  only, 
successful  commander  on  the  Greek  side  in  the  late  war 
w'as  one  who  had  had  the  advantage  of  an  elaborate 
scientific  training  in  Western  Europe.  The  example  of 
Smolenski  would  seem  to  justify  the  opinion  that  if  the 
Greek  Government  would  import  German  instructors  for 
the  army,  in  ten  years'  time  it  would  reverse  the  verdict  of 
that  fatal  struggle.  It  is  a  remarkable  fact,  that  the  editor 
of  the  AkrdpoHs,  3.  gentleman  of  "European"  education 
and  much  common  sense,  prophesied  in  1894  the  disasters 

303 


Travels   and   Politics 

which  would  befall  the  disorganised  Greek  army  unless  it 
were  reformed.  For  his  strictures  upon  the  army  the 
officers  broke  his  windows.  Three  years  later  he  might 
have  had  the  feminine  pleasure,  which,  as  a  patriot,  he 
scorned,  of  saying,  "  I  told  you  so."  The  reorganisation  of 
the  Greek  army.  General  Smolenski  thinks,  will  take  some 
four  or  five  years,  and  he  intends  to  do  it  thoroughly  and, 
if  necessary,  with  foreign  aid.  No  one  can  doubt  that  he 
is  the  most  competent  man  for  such  a  task,  and  it  is 
satisfactory  to  find  that,  even  a  year  after  the  war,  his 
simple  and  straightforward  character  and  his  complete 
lack  of  political  ambition  are  fully  appreciated  by  his 
countrymen.  Both  are  invaluable  qualities  in  a  Greek 
Minister  of  War,  and  it  has  been  one  of  the  greatest 
blessings  for  Greece  that  the  one  Greek  commander  who 
came  well  out  of  the  fiery  ordeal  of  the  vi^ar,  has  never 
been  inclined  to  play  the  part  of  a  Boulanger.  For 
some  persons,  ignorant  of  his  unassuming  character  and 
remembering  the  influence  of  successful  commanders  in 
all  ages  over  even  the  most  democratic  nations,  and  the 
dictatorships  which  military  heroes  have  been  able  to 
establish  in  times  of  crisis,  used  to  ask — Will  Constantine 
Smolenski  make  himself  dictator  ?  No  one  would  be  so 
foolish  as  to  ask  that  question  now. 

Turning  from  the  Greek  party-leaders  and  Ministers  to 
the  Greek  Parliament  as  a  whole,  one  is  not  likely  to  find 
there  much  prospect  of  salvation  for  the  nation.  Greece, 
with  the  exception  of  Bulgaria  and  Servia,  is  the  only 
Parliamentary  country  in  Europe  which  has  no  second 
chamber,  and  even  in  Bulgaria  a  special  second  chamber 
— the  Grand  Sohranjc — is  called  into  existence  to  con- 
sider any  organic  change  in  the  Constitution.  But  in 
Greece  the  Bonlc,  or  Chamber  of  Deputies,  is  supreme. 
No  House  of  Lords  exists  to  revise  its  decisions,  and  the 
result  is  that  there  is  nothing  to  relieve  the  King  from 

304 


in  the  Near  East 

responsibility  when  once  a  measure  has  passed  it.  At 
the  present  moment  the  Boiilc,  which  used  to  have  only 
150  members,  consists  of  207  deputies,  returned  by  71 
constituencies,  or  kirap\icu,  which  elect  a  number  of 
representatives  proportionate  to  their  population.  Thus 
Attica  returns  eleven  members,  Corfu  sends  seven,  Patras 
the  same  number,  and  several  of  the  less  populous 
districts  one  member  apiece.  No  man  can  be  a  deputy 
unless  he  is  thirty  years  of  age,  and  it  is  essential  that  he 
should  be  a  citizen  of  the  district  for  which  he  proposes 
to  stand.  The  result  of  the  latter  regulation,  as  in  the 
United  States,  has  been  to  give  undue  importance  to 
local  interests,  and  to  make  it  very  difficult  for  eminent 
statesmen  to  compete  against  local  celebrities,  unknown 
beyond  the  narrow  pale  of  their  own  district,  who  can 
devote  the  whole  of  their  time  to  parochial  atlairs.  Thus 
the  late  M.  Tricoupis,  easily  the  first  statesman  of  modern 
Greece,  was  defeated  at  Missolonghi,  his  native  place, 
simply  because  he  did  not  satisfy  the  local  requirements 
of  his  constituents.  There  are  cases,  however,  of  very 
long  tenures  of  seats  even  in  Greece.  Thus  the  late  M. 
Lombardos,  who  was  one  of  the  most  prominent  Ionian 
deputies  w^hen  the  Ionian  Islands  were  agitating  for 
union  with  Greece,  subsequently  sat  in  the  Boiilc  as 
member  for  Zante  for  thirty  years,  with  only  one  slight 
break.  Considering  that  the  electoral  period  is  only  four 
years,  and  that  general  elections  often  come  more 
frequently,  this  may  be  considered  as  a  remarkable  feat. 
In  form  the  Greek  Chamber  resembles  that  of  France, 
being  semicircular,  like  an  amphitheatre.  The  Presi- 
dent, or  TTjOoeSjooc,  and  the  four  Secretaries,  or  avyyfHKpeic, 
occupy  a  raised  dais,  flanked  by  bookcases  on  either  side, 
and  immediately  below  them  is  the  tribune  from  which 
the  orators  speak.  The  existence  of  a  tribune,  instead 
of  the   English    custom    of   speaking   from   one's    place, 

305  X 


Travels  and   Politics 

naturally  increases  the  flow  of  rhetoric,  and  places  the 
quiet,  business-like  member  at  a  disadvantage.  The  Presi- 
dent, the  four  Secretaries,  and  the  three  Deputy-Presidents, 
or  Deputy-Speakers  as  we  should  call  them,  are  elected 
by  ballot  from  among  the  deputies  every  session.  The 
present  Speaker  is  Count  A.  Roma,  one  of  the  members 
for  Zante,  who  is  probably  the  youngest  President  of 
any  representative  assembly. 

Facing  the  tribune  and  the  President's  dais  are  ranged 
the  seats  of  the  deputies  in  a  half-circle,  with  a  gangway  up 
the  middle,  there  being  six  rows  of  benches  on  each  side  of 
it.  The  first  row  of  seats  on  the  right  of  this  gangway  is 
appropriated  by  the  Ministers  and  the  principal  members 
of  the  Opposition  parties.  These  august  personages  are 
provided  with  six  little  tables,  while  the  rest  of  the  depu- 
ties simply  have  desks.  Perhaps  the  most  curious  rule  of 
the  proceedings,  from  an  English  point  of  view,  is  that 
which  fixes  the  quorum  at  one  more  than  half  the  total 
number  of  deputies,  instead  of  forty  as  in  our  House  of 
Commons.  That  is  to  say,  no  business  can  be  transacted 
by  the  Boitlc  unless  105  members  are  present.  The  result 
is  a  new  form  of  obstruction,  such  as  has  once  or  twice 
been  practised  in  the  London  County  Council.  It  is  no 
uncommon  thing  for  the  whole  of  the  Greek  Opposition 
to  stay  away  in  a  body,  and  thus  it  becomes  necessary  for 
a  jNIinistry  to  whip  up  all  their  supporters  in  order  to 
keep  a  House.  But  that  is  the  opportunity  of  the  dis- 
satisfied or  place-hunting  Ministerialists,  who  make  various 
excuses  for  their  absence  until  the  Premier  makes  it 
worth  their  while  to  come  to  Athens.  The  late  M. 
Tricoupis  was  an  adept  at  this  kind  of  thing,  and  was 
cjuite  able  to  provide  recalcitrant  Ministerialists  with  the 
best  of  reasons  for  returning  to  their  parliamentary 
duties  by  giving  snug  little  appointments  to  their  relatives 
or  their  constituents.     Another  method  of  obstruction  is 

^06 


in   the   Near   East 

caused  by  the  Greek  system  of  votinif.  The  rules  of  the 
Boiilc,  which  were  revised  in  February,  1896,  and  have 
been  pubhshed  in  a  neat  httle  vokuiie,  provide  that,  in 
the  first  place,  voting  should  be  by  a  show  of  hands,  each 
member  voting  in  his  place.  But  if  fifteen  deputies  at 
once  demand  a  roll-call,  it  becomes  necessary  to  call  over 
the  list  of  all  the  members— an  excellent  method  of 
wasting  time.  This  list  contains  two  blank  spaces  oppo- 
site the  name  of  each  member,  one  headed  N.,  the 
initial  of  the  Greek  word  "  Ncu,"  or  ''yes,"  the  other 
headed  O.,  the  first  letter  of  the  Greek  word  "  'Ox</'  or 
"  no."  A  mark  is  placed  in  one  of  these  two  spaces 
according  to  the  vote  of  each  deputy,  and  then  the 
figures  are  added  up.  There  are  no  division  lobbies  ;  but 
the  roll-call,  which  is  conducted  by  one  of  the  Secretaries, 
is  watched  by  tellers  appointed  by  the  Speaker  from  the 
ranks  of  the  Opposition.  At  the  opening  of  the  session, 
and  then  only,  does  the  King  take  part  in  the  proceedings, 
standing  in  the  Speaker's  place  to  read  his  speech,  with 
that  official  on  his  right  hand  and  the  Premier  on  his  left. 
Immediately  above  the  Speaker's  chair  is  a  gallery  for 
the  Royal  Family,  and  on  the  left  of  it  another  gallery 
for  the  cofps  diplomaiiqiic.  Ranged  round  the  Chamber 
are  various  galleries  for  ladies,  for  officers,  for  the  public, 
and  for  the  press,  the  last  being  well  equipped  with  desks. 
Needless  to  say,  in  this  country  the  press  takes  the  very 
keenest  interest  in  all  that  goes  on  in  the  Boulc.  There 
are  no  "whips,"  but  "question  time"  is  a  Greek  as  well 
as  a  British  institution,  taking  precedence  of  the  order  of 
the  day  ;  but  Ministers  need  not  answer  any  inconvenient 
interpellation.  The  President,  like  our  Lord  Chancellor, 
may  speak  by  leaving  his  chair,  but  in  practice  rarely  does 
so.  A  remarkable  feature  of  the  Greek  Chamber  is  that 
it  contains  no  committee  rooms,  as  the  library — which 
abounds  in  English  books  and  periodicals — takes  up  so 

307 


Travels  and  Politics 

much  space.  Another  deviation  from  the  amicable 
Enghsh  practice  is  the  existence  of  two  separate  smoking- 
rooms,  one  for  the  Government,  and  one  for  the  Opposi- 
tion. This  arrangement  naturally  prevents  those  con- 
venient compromises  which  are  much  more  easily  made 
over  a  cigar  than  in  the  Chamber  itself. 

Greece  has  now  no  parties,  in  the  ordinary  sense. 
There  is  nothing  like  the  traditional  British  division  into 
Liberals  and  Conservatives,  which  many  Greek  public  men 
and  also  the  King  regard  as  an  ideal  system.  Like  most 
foreign  legislatures,  that  of  Hellas  is  split  up  into  groups,  or 
Kofx/xtiTii,  whose  raison  d'etre  is  purely  personal.  There  are 
at  the  present  moment  some  six  of  these  groups  in  the 
Chamber.  There  are  the  Ministerialists;  the  Delyannists  ; 
the  old  followers  of  M.  Tricoupis,  whose  chief  is  M. 
Theotokis,  a  former  Minister  of  the  Interior  and  a  member 
of  a  very  distinguished  Corfiote  family  ;  then  come  the 
friends  of  M.  Rhallis,  those  of  M.  Deligeorgis,  and  those 
of  M.  Karapanos,  The  exact  proportions  of  these  various 
groups  it  is  extremely  difficult  to  fix,  because  the  figures 
of  the  last  election  are  now  no  guide  in  the  present 
changed  condition  of  affairs.  Like  all  other  Parliaments 
the  Boiilc  has  its  quaint  figures,  the  curiosity  in  its  case 
being  the  Mussulman  member  for  Larissa,  Hassan  Beg, 
who  has  an  insufficient  knowledge  of  the  Greek  language 
to  make  long  orations,  but  who  represents  the  consider- 
able Mohammedan  element  which  still  remains  in 
Thessaly.  During  the  events  of  last  year  the  lot  of  "  the 
honourable  Member  for  Larissa" — the  Greeks  use  this 
English  form  of  address — cannot  have  been  altogether  a 
happy  one.  A  Mussulman  deputy  is  indeed  a  rarity  in 
any  country,  although  the  worthy  Beg  from  Larissa  could 
boast  of  a  co-religionist  in  the  last  French  Chamber  of 
Deputies. 

The  great  rhetorical  gifts  of  the  Greeks  naturally  find 

308 


in   the   Near   East 

full    vent    in  the  Boitle,  although   no   member,  except  a 
Minister,  may  speak  more  than  three  times  on  the  same 
question.     The  late  M.  Tricoupis  once  spoke  straight  on 
end  for  two  days,  the  subject,  of  course,  being  the  eternal 
one  of  Greek   finance.     This    performance,  which  must 
surely  hold  the  record  of  all  countries,   is    remembered 
by  the  Greeks  with  great  pride,  and  they  tell  one  that 
though    M.    Delyannis    can    also   make  great   and    long 
speeches,  his  dead  rival  was  alone  able  to  make  them 
without  so  much  as  a  glass  of  water.   The  fact  that  many 
members    are    lawyers    adds    to    the     loquacity    of    the 
Chamber,  though  it  happily  also  contains  business  men 
and  persons  of  independent  means.     Still,  in  Greece  the 
leisured  class   is  not  sufficiently  numerous  to  enable  the 
Government    to    dispense    with    payment    of  members. 
Accordingly  each  deputy  receives  the  sum  of  i,8oo  paper 
drachmai,  worth  about   ^^48    12s,  at  the  present  rate  of 
exchange,  for  every  session.     Not  a  munificent  allowance 
it  is  true,  but  then  official  salaries  in  Greece  rule  low.  The 
Prime   Minister  receives   only    1,200   paper  drachmai   a 
month,  and  his  six  colleagues— for  the  Cabinet  can  say  *'  we 
are  seven" — only  800  drachmai  each.    The  Speaker  has  no 
official  salary,  but  enjoys  the  privilege  of  a  cosy  private 
room  decorated  with  some  pretty  pictures  and  the  use  of 
the  State  carriage  when  he  goes  out  for  a  drive.    Nor  can 
Ministers  or  ''conscientious"   members  be  rewarded  or 
pacified  by  the  British  method  of  making  them   peers  or 
baronets.     For  as  we   have  seen,  there  are  no  titles  at 
the  disposal  of  a  Minister  ;  and  even  the  Heir-Apparent, 
usually  described  as  Duke  of  Sparta  in  the  Western  press, 
is  always  called  in  Athens  simply  the   AtaSoxoc,  or  "  suc- 
cessor "  of  the   King.     British  statesmen,   in  judging  of 
the  Greeks,  should  therefore  take  into  their  consideration 
the  fact  that  snobbery  is  not  an   element  in  the  Hellenic 
character. 

309 


Travels  and   Politics 

It  will  thus  be  seen  that,  since  the  death  of  M.  Tricoupis, 
Greece  has  not  had,  and  up  to  the  present  shows  no  signs 
of  producing,  a  great  statesman  ;  while  there  is  not  much 
hope  to  be  found  in  the  Parliament.  In  the  country  of 
the  blind,  says  the  French  proverb,  the  one-eyed  man  is 
king.  In  plain  English,  the  Greeks  do  not  believe  that 
the  King  is  more  than  mediocre,  but  they  can  find  no  one 
else  to  save  the  State. 

The  reforms,  which  all  sensible  men  in  Greece  are  now 
demanding,  may  all  be  summed  up  in  a  single  sentence 
— the  separation  of  the  various  branches  of  the  adminis- 
tration from  the  vicissitudes  of  party  politics.  As  we  have 
seen,  in  no  country  in  the  world,  except  in  the  United 
States,  has  the  "  spoils  system  "  been  carried  out  to  such 
an  extent  as  in  Greece,  though  Bulgaria  is  unfortunately 
tending  that  way.  Worse  still,  although  the  judges  are 
theoretically  irremovable,  a  plan  has  been  found  for 
making  theni,  too,  subservient  to  the  exigencies  of  party 
warfare.  Salaries  in  Greece  are  low  ;  and,  although  the 
Za'imis  Ministry  has  lately  raised  the  payment  of  members 
of  the  Areopagos,  or  Supreme  Court,  from  450  paper 
drachmai  a  month  to  525,  this  remuneration  of  ;^i69  a 
year  (at  the  present  rate  of  exchange)  does  not  seem 
munificent  according  to  English  ideas,  while  the  tempta- 
tions to  which  it  exposes  the  judges  are  obvious,  and 
would  perhaps  be  hardly  resisted  (at  the  same  figure  per 
aniiniu)  even  by  the  inflexible  virtue  of  Western  Europe. 
But  the  Ministry  of  the  day,  if  it  wants  to  find  a  billet 
for  a  friendly  lawyer,  or  embarrass  a  hostile  one,  removes 
a  judge,  say,  from  Corfu  to  Volo,  to  his  own  great  incon- 
venience. A  similar  method  is  sometimes  adopted  to  get 
rid  of  examiners,  who  "plough"  the  sons  of  influential 
supporters  of  the  Minister  of  Education.  In  one  such 
case  a  conscientious  examiner  was  threatened  with  re- 
moval  from   Athens  to   Pyrgos.     Obviously,  the  higher 

310 


in  the   Near  East 

payment  of  judges — one  impartial  authority  of  much 
weight  suggests  to  me  15,000  drachmai  (or  ;^405)  as  the 
salary  of  each  member  of  the  Areopagos,  to  be  raised 
by  an  increase  of  the  stamp-duty,  now  very  low — 
coupled  with  their  maintenance  in  the  same  place  for 
three  years,  as  promised  by  the  King,  must  be  considered 
as  essential  to  the  regeneration  of  Greece.  No  one 
denies  the  badness  of  the  existing  judicial  system.  One 
ex-Minister  says  that  "there  is  no  justice  in  the  coun- 
try"; another  declares  that  ''judges,  unworthy  of  the 
name,  perform  their  functions  with  impunity";  while  a 
friend  of  mine,  a  high  judicial  authority  of  unim- 
peachable integrity,  has  wisely  reminded  his  country- 
men of  their  own  philosopher's  remark  that  it  is  easier 
to  practise  virtue,  and  therefore  law,  when  one  is  well 
off.  Even  the  army  has  been  contaminated  by  its 
contact  with  politics,  for  hitherto  military  officers  have 
been  eligible  as  deputies,  and  the  extraordinary  spectacle 
of  the  Minister  of  War  being  criticised  by  his  subor- 
dinates has  been  presented  in  the  Chamber  at  Athens. 
General  Smolenski  informed  mc,  at  an  interview  which  I 
had  with  him  at  the  War  Office,  that  the  exclusion  of 
officers,  except  those  of  the  higher  grades,  such  as 
generals  and  colonels,  from  seats  in  Parliament,  would 
form  part  of  the  Government  programme.  In  this  way 
discipline,  which  was  notoriously  lax  during  the  late  war, 
will  be  strengthened,  though  it  may  be  doubted  even  so 
whether  an  army  can  ever  be  well  in  hand,  when  its 
officers  play  dominoes  with  their  men  in  the  cafes. 

This  separation  of  the  public  services  from  party  in- 
fluences is  absolutely  essential  to  the  salvation  of  Greece. 
Wherever  the  King  went  on  his  Peloponnesian  tour,  the 
local  magnates  urged  him  to  put  an  end  to  the  odious 
system  of  "  log-rolling  " — crvvaXXayi],  as  the  Greeks  call 
it — which  has  been   the  bane  of  the  country  for  years. 

311 


Travels  and   Politics 

In  one  place,  the  people  greeted  the  King  with  shouts  of 
"  Down  with  the  factions  and  their  log-rolling  " — kutu)  tu 
KofxjuuTu  Kui  i)  avi'dWayn.  Jiist  as  in  the  famous  Presi- 
dential contest,  described  in  the  "  Bigelow  Papers,"  the 
candidate  promised  that  if  the  voter  would  help  to  get  him 
"  into  the  White  House,"  he,  when  elected,  would  put  his 
humble  supporter  "  into  the  lighthouse,  just  at  the  end  of 
Salem  Point,"  so  after  a  General  Election  in  Greece,  it 
has  been  the  custom  for  the  victorious  Minister  to  obtain 
from  the  King  a  vast  number  of  decrees — in  one  case,  I 
am  told,  as  many  as  20,000 — giving  him  power  to  confer 
public  appointments  of  a  small  kind  upon  his  followers. 
It  is  impossible  to  acquit  the  sovereign  of  all  blame  in 
this  matter.  Whether  from  natural  indifference  and  the 
desire  not  to  be  bothered  with  politics,  or  from  a  mistaken 
view  of  his  own  position  under  the  Constitution,  the  King 
has  given  his  Ministers  a  blank  cheque  to  make  what 
appointments  they  pleased.  Naturally  Premiers  like  M. 
Tricoupis  and  M.  Delyannis,  with  a  taste  for  party  manage- 
ment, liked  a  system  which  enabled  them  to  make  and 
keep  a  majority  at  the  public  expense.  In  fact,  the  former 
of  these  two  politicians  actually  established  a  special 
bureau  at  the  Ministry  of  Finance  for  considering  the 
requests  and  favours  desired  by  deputies  for  their  relatives 
and  friends.  Still  further  advantages  from  a  party  point 
of  view  were  reaped  by  the  Minister  from  this  nefarious 
method  of  bargaining,  owing  to  the  absurd  rule  above 
mentioned,  which  fixes  the  quorum  of  the  Greek  Parlia- 
ment at  one  more  than  half  the  total  number  of  deputies. 
Thus,  the  mivaWayij  pervades  all  forms  of  Greek  public 
life  ;  and,  until  it  is  stopped,  efficient  administration  will 
be  impossible,  while,  as  the  King  has  well  said,  the  whole 
time  of  deputies  is  at  present  wasted  in  asking  favours  for 
their  electors. 

The   extreme    cheapness   of    University   education    in 

312 


in  the  Near  East 

Greece  is  another  cause  of  this  evil.  Indeed,  out  of  the 
five  Balkan  States,  three,  Greece,  Bulgaria,  and  Servia,  all 
suffer,  in  greater  or  less  degree,  from  the  growing  difficulty 
of  providing  those,  who  have  had  a  higher  education,  with 
a  means  of  livelihood.  So  much  is  this  the  case  in 
Greece  and  Servia  that  the  present  Servian  Premier  an- 
nounced last  winter  his  intention  of  closing  several 
superior  schools,  while  the  Greeks  have  placed  a  fee  of 
150  drachmai  a  year  on  candidates  for  admission  to  the 
University  of  Athens.  But  this  fee  is  ridiculously  small, 
and  the  result  is  that  Greece  is  inundated  with  doctors 
without  patients  and  barristers  without  briefs.  In  the 
town  of  Pyrgos,  a  place  of  about  12,000  inhabitants,  there 
are  seventy  lawyers  attached  to  the  Court,  and  in  some 
other  cities  the  legal  profession  bears  an  even  greater  pro- 
portion to  the  population  and  trade  requirements.  Avery 
complicated  legal  procedure  and  a  natural  genius  for  liti- 
gation give  a  considerable  amount  of  work  for  lawyers, 
and  it  is  calculated  that  one-fifth  of  the  total  property  of 
the  people  is  in  the  law-courts.  But  for  the  vast  majority 
of  Greek  lawyers  and  doctors  there  is  little  prospect  of 
earning  a  livelihood  by  their  own  professions,  and  I  have 
heard  touching  stories  of  the  straits  to  which  these  poor 
wretches,  whose  education  has  been  their  curse,  are  put 
to  for  the  merest  necessities  of  existence.  Some  are  will- 
ing to  give  lessons  in  languages  at  starvation  prices  ; 
others  even  take  to  the  more  lucrative  trade  of  a  drago- 
man. One  is  sadly  reminded  by  their  sorry  plight  of  the 
Roman  poet's  sarcasm  :  Grceculus  csnriens,  in  ccchiiii,  Jiis- 
scris,  ibit.  What  Greece  really  wants,  in  common  with 
Servia,  and,  to  a  less  extent,  Bulgaria,  which  has  already 
taken  steps  in  this  direction,  is  technical  education  of  a 
really  practical  kind.  Even  some  University  professors 
recognise  this  fact.  As  the  Asty  justly  remarked  the  other 
day,  this  would  be  "  a  drastic  remedy  "  for  the  economic 

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evils  of  the  country.  Agriculture,  except  the  cult  of  the 
currant,  languishes  in  Greece  ;  for,  as  a  Greek  once  said 
to  a  friend  of  mine,  there  is  a  general  idea  that  "  the 
Hellenes  are  made  for  something  better  than  manual 
labour  ;  they  are  intended  to  work  with  their  heads,  and 
not  with  their  hands."  But  another  obstacle  to  agricul- 
ture is  the  high  rate  of  interest,  at  least  7  or  8  per  cent., 
charged  by  the  National  Bank.  A  good  economic  autho- 
rity tells  me  that,  until  the  farmer  can  borrow  money  at 
4  per  cent.,  it  is  useless  for  a  new  Hesiod  to  preach  the 
charms  of  country  life  and  the  advantages  of  agriculture. 
The  railway  question  enters  too  into  this  problem  ;  for, 
until  Thessaly  is  connected  with  the  rest  of  the  kingdom 
on  the  one  hand  and  with  the  European  railway  system, 
7'id  Salonica,  on  the  other,  that  beautiful  province  can 
never  be  properly  developed.  It  is  a  good  sign,  however, 
that  the  long-talked-of  Pirseus-Larissa  railway  is  at  last 
being  discussed  with  some  hope  of  a  practical  result.  For 
so  long  as  Greece  remains  without  through  railway  com- 
munication with  the  rest  of  the  world,  her  inhabitants  may 
well  talk  of  "going  to  Europe,"  as  if  they  belonged  geo- 
graphically to  another  continent.  M.  Tricoupis  did  well 
in  spending  money  on  the  Peloponnesian  lines  ;  but  if 
the  sums  which  were  wasted  on  the  Greek  fleet,  without 
the  very  smallest  return — except  the  cargo  of  vegetables 
captured  at  Santi  Quaranta — had  been  devoted  to  uniting 
the  country  with  the  great  European  railway  system, 
Greece  would  have  been  considerably  the  gainer  by  the 
transaction. 

Another  evil,  closely  connected  with  this,  is  the  neglect 
of  which  the  provinces  loudly  complain.  Greece  un- 
doubtedly suffers  from  over-centralisation,  and  it  is  one 
of  the  merits  of  M.  Rhallis,  that  he  is  in  favour  of  de- 
centralising the  administration,  although  he  is  himself  a 
representative  of  Attica.    As  we  have  shown  in  a  previous 

314 


in  the  Near  East 

chapter,  departments  such  as  the  Ionian  Islands,  which 
during  the  British  Protectorate  enjoyed  less  political 
liberty  but  far  greater  material  prosperity  than  now,  are 
particularly  bitter  in  their  outcries  against  the  glorification 
of  Athens  and  the  Pir?eus  at  their  expense,  especially  as 
an  attempt  has  been  made  to  remove"  the  monopoly  of 
cigarette-papers  and  playing-cards,  now  enjoyed  by  a 
Corfiote  manufacturer,  as  well  as  another  Corfiote  mono- 
poly, that  of  making  wax-candles,  to  the  Piraeus.  In  the 
former  case  the  attempt  seems  to  have  met  with  success, 
for  the  manufactory  is  to  be  closed  at  Christmas.  But 
these  complaints  are  by  no  means  confined  to  the  Ionian 
Islands,  only  there  the  people  are  more  vocal  in  giving 
utterance  to  them,  because  they,  alone  of  the  Greeks,  have 
experienced  the  advantages  of  a  Government  which  has 
money  to  spend  and  spends  it  with  a  free  hand  all  over 
the  country.  Natural  causes  have,  no  doubt,  contributed, 
as  in  the  transference  of  trade  from  Syra  to  the  Piraeus,  to 
the  concentration  of  prosperity  in  Athens  and  its  rapidly 
growing  port.  The  war,  for  example,  has  greatly  benefited 
the  trade  of  the  capital  and  the  Piraeus.  The  import  dues 
of  the  latter  place  went  up  30  per  cent,  in  the  last  twelve 
months  ;  while  at  Athens  the  custom  of  all  the  well-to-do 
Thessalian  and  Cretan  refugees,  who  had  to  purchase 
complete  outfits — for  in  their  hasty  flight  they  came  in 
what  they  stood  up  in — at  the  Athenian  shops  has  been  a 
source  of  great  profit  to  the  capital.  But  it  has  been  the 
policy  of  the  Government  to  spare  and  favour  the  capital 
as  much  as  possible,  and  this  was  especially  so  during  the 
struggle  of  last  year.  Here,  again,  the  King  has  not  done 
what  he  might  for  the  welfare  of  his  country.  It  may  seem 
incredible,  but  I  am  assured  that  it  is  the  fact,  that  His 
Majesty  has  never  in  all  his  thirty-five  years'  reign  made 
a  thorough  tour  of  the  provinces  until  this  summer.  But 
in  this  he  was  only  imitating  some  of  his  ablest  Ministers, 

315 


Travels  and  Politics 

who  hardly  ever  made  a  personal  inspection  of  the  out- 
lying parts  of  the  country.  In  a  kingdom  so  small  as 
Greece  this  neglect  is  quite  inexcusable,  and  it  is  another 
hopeful  sign  of  improvement  that  the  King  should  at  last 
have  resolved  to  go  and  see  and  hear  for  himself  what  his 
subjects  in  the  provinces  want  without  the  intervention 
of  interested  parties.  It  was  also  quite  the  right  thing  for 
the  Queen  to  take  the  baths  at  Aidipsos,  instead  of  going 
to  some  watering-place  outside  Greece.  No  one  grudges 
King  George  his  annual  jaunt  to  Aix-les-Bains  or  his 
quiet  life  as  a  country  squire  at  his  suburban  retreat 
of  Tatoi  ;  but  his  people,  or  at  any  rate  those  who  live 
outside  Attica,  think  that  he  ought  not  to  forget  that 
modern  Greece  is  not,  like  ancient  Athens,  one  city  and 
nothing  more.  For  the  old  conception  of  the  community 
as  a  woXiQ  will  not  suit  the  requirements  of  modern  Hellas, 
dear  as  town-life  has  been  to  the  average  Greek  in 
all  ages. 

Another  reform  urgently  needed  is  that  of  the  police. 
Western  writers  are  apt  to  be  misled  on  this  subject, 
because  they  are  ignorant  of  the  fact  that  a  large  part  of 
the  army  is  thus  employed,  and,  in  Athens,  for  example, 
it  is  rare  to  see  a  policeman  at  all.  At  present,  Greece 
spends  2,800,000  drachmai  on  police  pure  and  simple, 
and  it  is  estimated  that  15,000,000  drachmai  ought  to  be 
devoted  to  this  purpose  ;  in  that  case,  the  soldiers  would 
be  relieved  from  the  duty  of  acting  as  constables. 

The  question  of  establishing  a  second  chamber  in 
Greece,  to  check  the  rash  decisions  of  the  deputies,  who 
have  hitherto  monopolised  power,  is  not  viewed  with 
much  favour  by  Hellenic  statesmen.  M.  Lambros 
Koronielas,  a  very  able  and  independent  critic,  who 
has  kept  out  of  politics  but  whose  judgment  commands 
much  respect  at  Athens,  has  indeed  advocated  the 
creation  of  a  Senate  with  a  Council  of  State  to  advise 

316 


in   the   Near   East 

the  King.  But  most  Greeks  formulate  two  objections 
to  such  a  change,  which  are  certainly  very  practical. 
The  one  objection  is  that,  there  being  no  aristocracy 
in  Greece,  the  second  chamber  would  be  merely  a 
replica  of  the  first.  The  other  is,  that,  in  order  to 
create  such  a  second  branch  of  the  legislature,  an 
essential  change  in  the  Constitution  would  be  needed. 
But  to  make  any  essential  change  in  the  Greek  Con- 
stitution is  no  easy  matter.  For  in  Greece,  as  in  the 
United  States,  there  is  a  distinction  between  fundamental 
and  non-fundamental  reforms,  and,  in  order  to  effect  the 
former,  it  is  necessary  that  three-fourths  of  the  Chamber 
of  Deputies  for  two  consecutive  legislative  periods  should 
vote  for  the  proposed  change.  As  each  legislative  period 
would,  in  all  human  probability,  see  the  election  of  a 
fresh  set  of  deputies,  the  difHculty  of  securing  a  three- 
fourths  majority  in  two  successive  Parliaments,  extending 
possibly  over  eight  years  together,  seems  insuperable. 
The  constitution  of  a  conseil  d'etat  to  advise  the  King, 
w^ould  be  liable  to  the  second  of  these  objections,  if  not 
to  the  first.  Happily,  however,  the  pressing  evils,  of 
which  mention  has  been  made,  do  not  depend  for  their 
removal  upon  any  coup  d'etat  on  the  part  of  the 
Sovereign  or  any  great  constitutional  change  on  the 
part  of  the  nation.  For  in  Greece  as  in  some  other 
Eastern  countries  there  are  good  laws,  which  only 
require  good  administration  to  put  them  into  force. 
For  example,  the  so-called  "  Ecumenical  "  or  "  Great " 
Ministry,  which  combined  within  its  ranks  the  chiefs  of 
all  parties  under  the  presidency  of  the  veteran  Admiral 
Kanaris  at  a  moment  of  grave  national  danger  in  1878, 
laid  the  foundations  of  the  civil  service  reforms,  which 
the  present  Government  favours.  The  legislation  of  1878, 
as  M.  Zaimis  explained  to  me,  is  still  on  the  statute-book, 
though  party  leaders  have  agreed  to  treat  it  as  a   dead 

317 


Travels  and   Politics 

letter,  while  the  Boulgaris  Ministry  as  far  back  as  1868 
made  a  similar  declaration  in  the  Chamber  to  that,  which 
is  now  awaited  when  the  deputies  next  assemble.  Either 
this  Chamber,  or,  if  the  Government  be  defeated  by  the 
Delyannist  majority,  its  successor,  ought  to  begin  the 
work  of  reform  with  as  little  delay  as  possible.  Whether 
M.  Delyannis  would  sincerely  co-operate  with  the  King 
in  carrying  out  this  programme  may  be  doubted.  The 
Delyannist  organ  in  the  Athenian  Press,  the  Prom,  has 
scarcely  concealed  its  opposition  to  the  schemes  put 
forward  of  late  for  the  regeneration  of  the  country,  and 
has  made  as  light  as  possible  of  the  awaXXajt'i,  which 
independent  papers  like  the  Akivpolis  declare  to  be  "  the 
origin  of  all  the  woes  of  Greece."  Besides  the  events  of 
his  last  Ministry  can  hardly  have  increased  the  King's 
confidence  in  that  statesman,  at  no  time  very  great.  But 
if  his  Majesty  now  shows  confidence  in  himself  and 
carries  out  the  task,  which  the  people  is  anxious  to  place 
upon  him,  he  will  certainly  have  the  country  as  a  whole 
with  him.  In  the  words  of  a  prominent  political  leader, 
whom  I  consulted  on  this  subject,  the  Greeks  "  do  not 
want  a  Monarchy  which  seeks  repose."  King  George  of 
Greece  is  not  a  King  Carol  of  Roumania  ;  he  is  too  fond 
of  taking  things  easily  ;  he  has  a  family  man's  keen  desire 
to  make  his  children  comfortable  and  see  them  settled  in 
life,  while  he  does  not  love  responsibility  in  public  affairs. 
But  he  can  now  do  a  great  service  to  his  people,  if  he 
exerts  himself,  while,  if  he  fails  now,  there  is  certain  to  be 
a  great  reaction  against  him.  Within  the  strict  limits  of 
the  Constitution,  he  can  display  considerable  personal 
activity,  if  he  chooses.  Of  course,  the  business  of  king- 
ship is  extremely  hard  in  a  country,  where  an  appetite 
for  criticism  and  the  absolute  disregard  for  rank  are 
common  to  every  citizen.  If  the  King  of  Greece  were  an 
archangel  and  his  seven  Ministers  so  many  sages,  they 

318 


in  the  Near  East 

would  not  always  find  it  easy  to  govern  the  critical 
Greeks.  But  the  nation  is  willing,  and  anxious  to  see 
its  Sovereign  exercise  to  the  full  the  powers  which  the 
Constitution  grants  him,  having  by  this  time  bought  only 
too  dearly  the  usual  experience  of  Eastern  Europe,  that 
parliamentary  government  in  young  communities  is  by 
no  means  the  unqualified  success  that  we,  with  our  six 
centuries  of  political  training  and  our  slow  Northern 
temperament,  have  found  it  to  be.  As  the  King  well 
said  at  Patras,  "  the  Greeks  are  not  Danes,"  and  he 
added  that  "  the  Greek  people  and  the  Greek  Monarchy 
will  rise  together,  for  their  interests  are  the  same." 

To  Great  Britain  those  interests  cannot  fail  to  be  of 
importance.  By  our  Eastern  policy  in  the  last  four  years 
we  have  alienated,  and,  I  think,  rightly  alienated,  the 
sympathies  of  the  Turkish  Government,  which  must  not 
for  a  moment  be  confounded  with  the  Turkish  people. 
The  Germans  are  rapidly  undermining  such  commercial 
influence  as  we  have  left  in  Asia  Minor,  and  British 
merchants  at  Constantinople  assure  me  that  it  is  now 
almost  impossible  for  our  fellow-countrymen  to  obtain 
concessions  for  commercial  undertakings  from  the  Sultan, 
especially  as  our  Government  never  backs  them  up. 
Under  these  circumstances  we  ought  to  seek  the  friend- 
ship of  those  Christian  States  which,  in  spite  of  their 
obvious  faults,  contain  at  least  what  Turkey  does  not 
contain,  the  germs  of  progress.  Of  these  States  Greece, 
being  essentially  maritime,  is  particularly  adapted  for 
harmonious  intercourse  with  Great  Britain,  which  may 
perhaps  find,  too,  among  the  Greeks  of  Asia  Minor  some 
means  of  checking  the  German  advance  in  that  part 
of  the  Levant.  Of  late,  indeed,  Greece  has  suffered 
almost  as  much  from  the  ultra-enthusiasm  of  some 
of  her  British  supporters  as  from  absurd  depreciation 
from  the  lips  of  those  who  judge  the  nation  simply  from 

319 


Travels  and  Politics  in  the  Near  East 

the  military  standpoint.  For  my  part,  I  do  not  believe 
that  the  Greek  character  is  of  the  same  grit,  and  hard  if 
somewhat  uninteresting  common  sense,  as  the  Bulgarian, 
and,  of  course,  Greek  administration  cannot  compare 
with  that  of  Austria-Hungary  in  Bosnia.  But  go  from 
the  countries  under  the  immediate  rule  of  the  Sultan  to 
Athens,  and,  in  spite  of  the  many  defects  of  Greek 
politicians,  it  is,  at  any  rate,  a  change  for  the  better. 
Besides,  the  Greeks  have  a  real  wish  for  a  reform  of  their 
administrative  system,  the  defects  of  which  were  so  clearly 
exposed  by  the  war,  while  the  Turkish  Government  is 
absolutely  stationary,  where  it  has  not  actually  receded. 
That  the  Greeks  will  ever  realise  their  graiufe  idee  and 
become  the  heirs  of  the  Turk  in  Macedonia  and  on  the 
Bosporus,  I  do  not  believe — for  there  are  now  other  and 
more  formidable  competitors  in  the  field.  But  that 
Greece  may  become  a  prosperous  and  well-administered 
country  should  be  quite  possible.  The  reforms  above 
indicated,  the  improvement  of  the  judiciary  and  police, 
the  separation  of  the  army  from  politics,  the  establish- 
ment of  a  permanent  civil  service  (fxovifxoTroitiaig  tCjv 
vTraXXi'iXiov),  the  proper  care  of  the  provinces  and  the 
decentralisation  of  the  Government — these  should  work 
a  vast  amelioration  in  the  state  of  the  nation,  even  with- 
out any  rash  constitutional  changes.  But  in  the  absence 
of  other  leaders,  the  initiative  must  devolve  on  the  King, 
upon  whom  all  Greek  eyes  are  now  fixed. 


320 


32] 


CHAPTER  IX 

CRETE   UNDER   THE   CONCERT 

WHEN  I  arrived  at  Canea  last  April,  after  a  three 
days'  tossing  off  the  inhospitable  coast  of  the 
Peloponnesus,  my  first  impression  of  Crete  was  that  the 
new  governor,  whatever  his  other  qualifications,  should  at 
least  be  a  good  sailor.     My  second  feeling,  as  I  landed  on 


THE   QUAY   OF   CAXEA. 
(From  a  Photo,  by  liliss  Chndwick.) 

the  quay,  was  that  of  all  towns  in  the  East  which  I  had 
ever  visited  Canea  was  the  most  picturesque,  and,  at  the 
same  time,  the  most  cosmopolitan.  During  my  stay  in 
the  place  I  became  more  and  more  struck  by  the 
extraordinary  interest  attaching  to  this  quaint  little  port, 

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Travels  and  Politics  in  the  Near  East 

which  has  been  for  the  last  year  and  nine  months  the 
pivot  of  the  Eastern  question.  On  the  quay,  and  in  the 
streets,  of  Canea,  all  nationalities  meet,  all  tongues  are 
spoken,  all  currencies  pass  muster.  Even  on  the  bridge 
of  Galata  itself  you  will  not  find  such  a  medley  as  in  the 
Cretan  capital.  No  one  ever  takes  the  trouble  to  change 
money  here.  Greek  silver — which  you  never  see  in 
Greece,  but  which  is  abundant  in  Crete — Turkish  uicd- 
jidich  and  small  coins  in  hundreds,  which  are  almost 
unprocurable  in  Constantinople,  English  shillings  and 
pence,  French  francs,  Italian  lire,  Russian  roubles,  Austrian 
gulden — are  all  gleefully  accepted.  Even  at  the  two 
"European  "  post-offices,  the  Austrian  and  the  French  — 
for  the  Turkish  never  delivers  letters,  and  only  exists  for 
the  sake  of  form — all  sorts  and  conditions  of  coins  are 
current,  and  the  traveller  can  make  himself  misunderstood 
in  a  dozen  languages.  In  fact,  here  everything  is  cosmo- 
politan. Even  the  pet  dog  of  Renter's  correspondent  is 
called  Ic  cliicii  iiitcnuifioiuil,  by  reason  of  its  fondness  for 
every  officer  of  the  Great  Powers  who  will  pay  it  attention. 
The  porters  who  shoulder  your  luggage  in  the  drowsy 
Custom  House,  where  ragged  Turkish  officials  doze  over 
their  nargilcJi  in  blissful  indifference  to  all  that  is  going  on 
around  them,  are  coal-black  negroes  or  dusky  Arabs  ;  side 
by  side  with  these  hewers  of  wood  and  drawers  of  water, 
who  do  all  the  manual  work  of  Canea,  stand  groups  of 
tall  Cretans  with  their  handkerchiefs  tied  over  their  heads, 
and  with  that  other  marked  characteristic  of  these  strap- 
ping islanders,  a  clear  interval  of  bare  leg  between  their 
top-boots  and  their  baggy  blue  breeches.  Then  there  are 
Jews  in  thick  mantles,  and  shabby  Turkish  soldiers, looking, 
for  all  their  pluck,  a  sorry  spectacle  beside  the  well- 
groomed,  regularly  paid,  and  smartly  trained  detachment 
of  the  five  Great  Powers,  whose  sentries  pace  to  and  fro 
along  the  quay — for  on  my  arrival  the  Austrians  were  still 

323 


Travels  and  Politics  in  the  Near  East 

in  Crete,  five  flags,  besides  the  Turkish,  still  waved  on  the 
historic  mound  upon  the  ramparts,  and  Germany  alone 
had  "laid  down  the  flute."  On  the  day  that  I  landed  it 
was  the  turn  of  the  Italians,  and  a  couple  of  bersaglieri 
with  fixed  bayonets  kept  some  sort  of  order  among  the 
mob  at  the  Custom  House.  Two  days  later  it  was  the 
duty  of  the  British  to  guard  the  approach  to  Canea  and 
prevent  the  landing  of  arms,  and  our  scarlet-coated  soldiers, 
who  paid  vast  attention  to  their  toilet,  shone  out  resplen- 
dent among  the  Orientals  around  them.  Next  the 
Austrians,  in  their  practical  blue  uniform,  came  on  the 
scene,  and  the  French  and  the  Russians  followed  suit. 
And,  to  complete  the  picture,  you  had  but  to  pass  beneath 
the  old  Venetian  gateway  into  the  market-place  to  find  the 
forty  crimson-clad  Montenegrin  gendarmes  sauntering 
along,  head  and  shoulders  over  most  of  the  passers-by,  with 
their  revolvers  protruding  from  the  5/7^7/  at  their  waists,  and 
ever  ready  to  talk  of  their  native  mountains.  Up  in  the  town 
the  work  of  clearing  away  the  ruins  and  rebuilding  the 
houses,  destroyed  in  the  fire  of  February  last  year,  had 
begun  apace,  and  the  noise  of  the  joiners'  saws  seemed  an 
omen  of  returning  confidence.  The  Greek  Archbishop, 
the  Despotes,  as  they  call  him,  was  still  obliged  to  reside 
in  a  temporary  abode,  for  his  palace  is  as  yet  unrestored. 
But  the  rest  of  the  town  was  undoubtedly  more  pros- 
perous than  it  had  been  since  the  Cretan  troubles  began. 
An  hotel  that  could  fairly  be  called  European,  with  a 
Corsican  manager  and  a  Spanish  assistant,  where  we  sat 
down  to  dinner  with  thirty-two  Italian  officers,  was  a  sur- 
prise to  a  traveller  accustomed,  like  myself,  to  the  filthy 
accommodation  and  scanty  fare  of  a  Greek  or  Bulgarian 
liaii.  If  the  European  concert  has  not  done  much  for 
Crete,  it  has,  at  least,  given  its  name  to  a  restaurant  at 
Canea,  and  enabled  a  swarm  of  marine  cafes  to  flourish, 
while  under  its  patronage  a  variety  theatre  where  Italian 

325 


Travels   and   Politics 

operetta  is  nightly  performed  by  ample  Levantine  beauties, 
imported  from  Smyrna,  exhibits  to  the  scornful  Mussul- 
mans the  amusements  of  Western  civilisation.  Canea  has 
its  Cafe  Restaurant  an  Concert  Eiiropceii,  its  Concert  Monte 
Carlo,  its  Moulin  Rouge  and  its  PJiotograpliie  an  Souvenir 
de  Crete.  Even  the  bootblacks  of  Canea  have  learned  to 
swear  and  beg  for  l^aksliish  in  six  European  languages, 
and  the  barbers  have  discovered  that  it  is  the  privilege 
of  Englishmen  to  pay  double  for  a  shave. 

But  the  advantages  of  the  present  government  of  Crete 
are  by  no  means  apparent  when  one  comes  to  talk  to  the 
people.  During  my  stay  in  the  island,  I  had  opportunities 
of  interviewing  persons  of  all  sorts  and  conditions, 
Europeans  as  well  as  Cretans,  Mussulmans  as  well  as 
Christians,  with  regard  to  the  work  of  the  Great  Powers, 
and  their  unanimous  verdict  was  that  the  collective  wisdom 
of  Europe  had  made  mistakes  which  any  four  men  of 
ordinary  common  sense  could  easily  have  avoided.  I 
need  not  allude  to  the  international  jealousies  of  the 
Powers,  for  they  have  long  been  patent  to  all  who  have 
studied  the  history  of  the  Eastern  question.  But  in  the 
treatment  of  Crete  a  further  complication  has  arisen  out 
of  the  conflicting  jurisdictions  of  the  various  officials 
employed  by  each  Power.  The  naval  authorities  have 
come  into  conflict  with  the  military  ;  the  advice  of  the 
Consuls,  who  have  spent  years  in  the  island,  has  in  some 
cases  been  neglected  for  that  of  persons  who  knew  little 
or  nothing  about  it.  On  one  occasion,  one  of  these  latter 
showed  his  ignorance  of  the  situation  by  issuing  a  procla- 
mation in  Turkish,  whereas  in  Crete  the  Mussulmans,  no 
less  than  the  Christians,  with  few  exceptions,  speak  Greek 
as  their  mother  tongue  and  know  very  little  Turkish.  Our 
own  naval  men  are  excellent  fellows,  but  most  of  them 
know  hardly  anvthing  of  Crete  and  do  not  show  the  least 
interest  in  the  country  or  its  people.     But,  as  Admiral 

326 


in   the   Near   East 


Noel  has  shewn,  if  they  are  allowed  a  free  hand,  they  can 
do  a  great  deal.  The  amount  of  money  that  has  been  spent 
by  Europe  in  Cretan  waters  since  the  disturbances  began 
is  calculated  to  have  just  exceeded  twice  the  value  of  the 
island.  Great  Britain  alone  has  expended  ;^i6,ooo  on  the 
new  huts  for  her  soldiers.  She  pays  the  natives  ;^i5o  a 
month  for  keeping  the  streets  clean  at  Candia — an  inno- 


STREET  IN   CANDIA. 

(fiviii  a  Photo,  by  Miss  Cliadwick.) 

vation  which  simply  astounded  the  inhabitants,  and  has 
nearly  starved  the  street-dogs  of  the  place,  but  which  had 
made  it,  before  the  disturbances  of  last  month,  one  of  the 
sweetest  towns  of  the  East — and  provides  a  special 
steamer,  the  now  famous  Turquoise,  for  distilling  water  for 
her  troops,  which  before  were  decimated  with  typhoid. 
How  Italy  can  stand  the  cost  of  the  occupation  no  one  can 

327 


Travels  and   Politics 

understand,  unless,  as  some  whisper,  Great  Britain  pays 
for  the  coal  which  her  big  men-of-war  require  at  Suda. 
Germany  did  the  whole  affair  on  the  cheap  from  the  very 
first,  and  Russia  has  no  lack  of  roubles  for  the  Cretans. 
At  the  market  outside  Candia,  which  I  attended,  the 
Russian  representative  carried  a  bag  of  napoleons,  which 
he  distributed  to  the  Cretan  chiefs,  to  the  disgust  of  some 
of  the  spectators,  and  the  amusement  of  others.  There 
can  be  no  doubt  whatever  that  the  Russian  Foreign  Office 
is  maintaining  a  very  active  propaganda  in  Crete,  and  that 
the  Tsar's  zeal  on  behalf  of  Prince  George  is  no  more 
disinterested  than  were  his  grandfather's  efforts  on  behalf 
of  a  free  Bulgaria.  The  historic  offer  of  Crete  to  Great 
Britain,  which  Nicholas  I.  made  to  Sir  Hamilton  Seymour 
in  1853,  will  not  be  repeated  by  Nicholas  II.  But  the 
action  of  the  Russians  in  disarming  the  Mussulmans  of 
Rethymno  was  generally  praised  by  the  British,  and  the 
personal  relations  between  our  men  and  theirs,  as,  indeed 
between  the  soldiers  of  all  the  Powers,  have  been  good. 
This  has  been,  indeed,  one  good  result  of  the  joint  occu- 
pation of  the  island  by  the  Powers.  It  was  amusing  to 
hear  the  good-natured  efforts  of  Tommy  Atkins  to  make 
himself  understood  by  the  Italians  at  Canea,  with  whom 
the  British  private  was  on  the  best  of  terms.  Even  the 
French  and  the  Italians,  despite  the  Zola  case,  got  on  well 
together,  though  the  Mussulmans  do  not  appreciate  the 
French  method  of  managing  them.  The  disturbance  at 
Canea  about  the  middle  of  April  was  due  to  a  quarrel 
between  the  French  and  the  Turkish  soldiers,  and  I  am 
told  that  the  Russians  and  the  Italians  are  at  present  the 
most  popular  with  the  Cretans.  It  should,  however,  be 
mentioned  to  the  credit  of  the  British  troops  at  Candia 
that,  since  the  sole  occupation  of  that  town  by  them,  there 
has  not  been  a  single  case  in  which  any  outrage  has  been 
committed  on  a  Mussulman  woman.     When  the  Italians 

328 


in   the   Near   East 

were  there,  they  sometimes  got  into  trouble  for  pranks  of 
this  kind  ;  but  the  British,  who  were  encamped  on  the 
ramparts  and  not  in  the  town  itself,  were  kept  in  perfect 
order,  were  not  allowed  in  the  streets  except  in  small 
parties,  and  were  forbidden  to  drink  except  at  their  own 
canteen.  The  confidence  which  Colonel  Sir  Herbert 
Chermside  enjoyed  with  the  Mussulmans,  who  form 
the  vast  majority  of  that  town  since  the  flight  of  the 
Christians,  was  a  most  important  factor  in  the  situation 
there.  I  doubt  whether  the  horrible  events  of  September, 
which  took  place  in  his  absence,  would  have  occurred 
at  all,  if  the  Candiote  Mussulmans  had  not  been  hounded 
on  from  Constantinople.  But  the  military  cordon  round 
Candia,  which  was  kept  by  Turkish  soldiers,  always 
compared  unfavourably  with  that  round  Canea,  which 
was  guarded  by  international  troops.  During  my  stay 
at  Candia,  a  man  was  shot  and  a  boy  of  eleven 
wounded  by  the  Turkish  guardians  of  the  cordon  near 
Arkhanies,  though  the  man,  a  Christian,  was  well  within 
Christian  territory.  Such  cases  were  not  uncommon  ; 
while  I  crossed  the  Canea  cordon,  at  that  time  policed  by 
Italian  bersaglieri,  with  two  ladies  and  a  naval  lieutenant, 
on  my  way  to  visit  the  "  insurgents  "  at  Aliakanou,  without 
the  least  risk.  We  rode  through  magnificent  scenery  ; 
the  meadows  were  brilliant  with  asphodel  ;  the  orange 
trees  were  a  picture  ;  but  here  and  there  a  ruined  block- 
house, and  a  row  of  charred  olive  stumps  reminded  us 
of  the  incessant  warfare  which  has  gone  on  in  the  island 
for  centuries.  The  Christian  outposts  received  our  party 
with  the  most  courteous  hospitality,  offering  us  wine  and 
small  slices  of  bakahi,  or  cod-fish,  for  which  they  refused 
all  payment.  A  little  fuither  on  we  crossed  a  stream,  the 
classic  lardanos.  At  the  village  beyond,  not  far  from  the 
spot  where  Colonel  Vassos  pitched  his  camp  last  year,  a 
whole  band  of  armed  Christians  turned  out  to  receive  us  ; 

329 


Travels  and   Politics 

chairs  and  a  table  were  placed  in  the  street,  coffee  and 
oranges — the  splendid  Cretan  oranges,  which  recall  those 
of  Jaffa — were  set  before  us  ;  one  of  our  hosts  who  had 
spent  two  years  in  Paris,  harangued  us  in  P'rench — he  w'as 
a  cousin  of  Professor  Jannaris  of  Scotland — and  another 
in  Italian  upon  the  woes  of  their  country.  Meanwhile, 
their  martial  compatriots,  each  with  three  cartridge-belts 
slung  around  him  and  a  rifle  in  his  hand,  stood  listening 
with  the  keenest  interest.     They  were  delighted  to  pose 


CHKISTIAX    IXSUKGENTS   AT   AI.IAKAXUU. 
From  a  Photo,  by  Miss  Chadwick.) 


for  their  photograph,  and  the  women  and  children  bade 
us  God-speed,  and  showered  bouquets  of  orange-blossom 
upon  us,  amid  shouts  of  Znroj  i)  'AyyXia.,  "  Long  live 
England."  Yet  no  Mussulman  dared  have  visited  this 
spot,  just  as  no  Christian  could  cross  the  cordon  in  safety 
and  enter  the  bazar  at  Candia.  Even  an  Italian  soldier 
who  wore  a  fez  was  nearly  shot  by  mistake  for  a  Moslem 
near  this  spot  where  we  had  quietly  sipped  our  coffee. 

This  isolation  of  the  two  parties  in  hostile  camps  is  a 
pressing  difficulty,  which  results  from  the  concentration 

330 


in   the   Near  East 

of  the  Mussulmans  in  the  coast  towns  and  of  the 
Christians  in  the  interior  of  the  island.  The  former 
have  burned,  or  occupied,  the  houses  of  the  latter 
in  the  towns  ;  the  latter  have  ravaged,  or  seized,  the 
fields  of  the  former  in  the  country.  At  Canea  it  was 
exclusively  the  quarter  mhabited  by  the  Greek  Orthodox 
population  that  suffered  from  the  flames,  and  it  was  noted 
that  the  Turkish  soldiers,  evidently  acting  on  orders,  pro- 
tected the  Catholic  church.  At  Candia,  out  of  a  popula- 
tion estimated  at  from  forty  thousand  to  fifty  thousand, 
only  from  two  hundred  to  live  hundred  Christians 
remained.  Others  returned  from  Greece  later,  and  at 
the  time  of  the  September  massacre  the  number  of 
Christians  must  have  been  about  twelve  hundred. 
Not  the  least  thorny  problem,  that  awaits  the  future 
governor  of  Crete,  is  the  reinstatement  of  the  respective 
parties  in  their  previous  homes,  or  the  compensation  or 
buying  out  of  the  present  occupants.  The  suggestion 
that  the  Mussulmans  will  solve  the  problem  by  emigrating, 
as  they  have  largely  done  in  Bulgaria,  is  not  regarded  as 
probable  in  the  case  of  those  who  have  land  or  money. 
Much  tact,  much  patience,  and  much  money  will  be 
needed  for  the  settlement  of  this  very  practical  diffi- 
culty. When  I  was  in  Crete,  the  household  goods  of 
the  Christians  who  had  fled  from  Candia  to  Greece  were 
piled  up  in  the  large  cathedral  of  the  town.  There  I  saw 
higgledy-piggledy,  pianos,  tables,  chairs,  mirrors,  even 
cases  of  wine,  with  the  names  of  their  owners  scrawled 
roughly  upon  them  ;  so  crammed  was  the  building  with 
these  pieces  of  furniture,  that  it  resembled  a  pantechnicon 
rather  than  a  church.  All  service  there  was  impossible, 
and  the  tiny  chapel  beside  it  had  to  be  used  instead  ;  but 
even  it  was  more  than  sufficient  for  the  few  Christians 
who  lingered  in  Candia.  At  Canea,  where  the  prepon- 
derance of  the   Mussulmans  is  less  marked,   I   attended 

331 


Travels  and  Politics  in  the  Near  East 

worship  in  the  cathedral,  the  upper  part  of  which  was 
used  as  an  office  for  the  distribution  of  reHef  to  the 
starving.  But,  perhaps,  the  saddest  instance  of  the 
fratricidal  warfare  between  the  Christians  and  the 
Mussulmans  of  the  island,  both,  be  it  remembered, 
of  the  same  race  and  both  speaking  the  same  language, 
is  to  be  found  in  a  village  called  Mournies,  about  an  hour 
outside  Canea,  where  the  two  creeds  dwelt  side  by  side  in 
about  equal  numbers.  At  this  place,  which  I  visited  with 
the  Russian  vice-consul,  not  a  single  house  remained 
intact.  The  two  rival  parties  had,  with  fiendish  ingenuity, 
destroyed  every  vestige  of  each  others'  homes,  save  a  few 
charred  rafters  and  a  few  rusty  old  pots  and  pans  !  And 
this  in  the  midst  of  one  of  the  most  lovely  scenes  that  the 
human  mind  can  imagine.  As  we  walked  through  the 
ruins  of  what  was  once  a  happy  village,  the  air  was  laden 
with  the  scent  of  the  lemon-blossom  and  the  song  of  the 
nightingale  fell  upon  our  ears  ;  wild  flowers  covered  the 
ground,  and  through  the  foliage  we  could  see  in  the 
distance  the  snow-capped  range  of  the  White  Mountains 
rising  into  the  azure  blue  sky  and  just  reddened  by  the 
sun.  We  had  seen,  too,  in  the  charming  garden  of  a  rich 
Bey  at  the  adjoining  village  of  Kukunara  ("the  fir-tree  "), 
what  the  gardener's  art  could  do  in  this  splendid  climate, 
where,  indeed,  "every  prospect  pleases."  As  we  passed 
through  fields  of  what  had  once  been  olive  trees,  and 
where  all  that  remained  were  blackened  stumps — Sir 
Alfred  Biliotti  told  me  that  two  million  olive  trees, 
valued  at  £i  apiece,  had  been  destroyed  altogether — 
I  recalled  that  terrible  epigram  of  the  Roman  poet  : 
laiiliiiii  rcligio  pofiiit  suadcrc  uuiloiinn.  For  of  Crete,  no 
less  than  of  Bosnia  under  the  Turks,  religious  fanaticism 
has  been  the  curse. 

Fortunately,  there  is  some  light  in  this  dark  picture. 
I  may  instance  a  case  told  me  by  Herr  Berinda,  the  able 

332      . 


Travels  and   Politics 

Austro-Hungarian  vice-consul  and  agent  of  the  Austrian- 
Lloyd  at  Candia,  who  has  had  twenty-eight  years'  experi- 
ence of  Crete.  This  gentleman  had  a  Mussulman,  whose 
half-brother  was  a  Christian,  in  his  employ.  When  the 
disturbances  were  beginning,  the  Mussulman  went  to  his 
brother,  of  whom  he  was  very  fond,  told  him  that  he 
could  not  save  him  from  an  outburst  of  fanaticism  if 
he  stayed  in  the  place,  and  furnished  him  with  money 
and  an  opportunity  for  flight  from  Crete,  and  offered  him 
half  of  everything  he  possessed.  The  Cretans  are,  no 
doubt,  naturally  fond  of  fighting  ;  an  Austrian  officer, 
who  knew  them  well,  remarked  to  me  "  that  they  were 
born  into  the  world  with  a  rifle  in  their  hands,"  and  even 
in  Aristotle's  time  their  training  was  entirely  military.^ 
During  the  first  century  and  a  half  of  Venetian  rule  there 
were  fourteen  Cretan  insurrections.  But  those  who  live 
among  them  speak  with  much  sympathy  of  their  gentler 
characteristics,  while  it  is  reserved  for  those  who  know 
them  slightly  to  describe  them  as  "  liars  and  cowards, 
whose  idea  of  battle  is  to  take  pot-shots  at  an  enemy  at 
long  range  from  behind  a  rock."  There  are,  too,  some 
germs  of  culture  to  be  found  among  them.  I  know  one 
old  Cretan  Mussulman,  a  doctor  of  Candia,  whose  school- 
room is  hung  with  maps  of  the  United  Kingdom  and 
Australia,  whose  little  girl  read  to  me  out  of  a  shilling 
English  primer  how,  "  a  fat  cat  sat  on  a  mat,"  and  whose 
son  has  carried  off  all  the  prizes  at  a  French  school.  This 
worthy  gentleman's  one  regret  is  that  there  is  no  English 
clergyman  in  Candia  to  teach  him  and  his  family  our 
language,  and,  as  he  took  me  over  the  library  of  French 
books  which  the  Alliance  frani^aisc  has  founded  in  his 
town,  he  complained  that  the  British  neglected  to  spread 
their  language  in  the  Levant.  At  a  luncheon-party,  which 
this  advanced  reformer  gave  in  the  garden  of  a  Moham- 

'  'Ev  TtipriTy  TTpuc  tovq  tvoX^iovc  avi'TiraKTai  ax'icov  //  iruiCda. 

334 


in   the   Near   East 

medan  tekkeh,  or  monastery,  about  an  hour  from  the 
ramparts  of  Candia  and  within  a  short  distance  of  the 
cordon,  I  was  privileged  to  see  how  far  he  had  gone  in 
the  direction  of  Western  manners. 

As  Crete  is  not  exactly  a  promising  place  for  a  picnic, 
I  was  somewhat  staggered  when  he  suggested  the  idea. 
As  the  doctor  would,  however,  take  no  refusal,  I  accepted 
his  cordial  invitation,  and  next  morning  saw  us  start  from 
one  of  the  three  old  Venetian  gateways  of  Candia,  some 
on  the  appalling  wooden  saddles  of  the  island  and  the 
rest  on  our  feet  over  the  dry  river  beds,  which  in  Crete 
are  by  polite  fiction  described  as  roads.  Our  Turkish  host 
considered  it  his  duty  as  a  man  of  Western  culture  to 
walk,  and  arrived  as  fresh  as  paint  at  his  journey's  end. 
But  a  less  progressive  Moslem  of  portly  build  and  zebra- 
striped  waistcoat  was  severely  punished  by  the  heat,  and 
looked  extremely  glad  when  we  reached  the  hospitable 
gate  of  the  tekkcJi. 

The  monastery  in  question,  which  is  close  to  the  site 
of  the  famous  Labyrinth  of  Gnossos,  was  then  occupied 
by  a  hundred  families  of  Mussulman  refugees,  who  had 
fled  in  from  the  country,  which  was,  and  still  is,  entirely 
in  the  hands  of  the  Christians.  Bright-eyed,  intelligent 
children — the  Cretan  children.  Christians  and  Mussul- 
mans alike,  are  extremely  pretty — and  tall,  handsome  men 
crowded  round  us  ;  while  the  women,  who  peered  out  of 
the  upper  windows,  signified  by  gestures  their  immense 
surprise  at  the  golden  tooth  of  one  of  our  party,  the  like 
of  which  they  had  never  seen  before,  and  which  they 
evidently  regarded  as  a  mark  of  great  beauty.  An 
old  dervish,  clad  in  coarse  white  frieze,  escorted  us 
upstairs  to  a  sort  of  reception-room,  hung  with  the 
crudest  pictures  imaginable,  where  coffee  and  cigarettes 
were  served  round.  After  we  had  had  time  to  inspect 
the  designs  on  the  walls — for  this  monastic  order  is  the 

335 


Travels   and   Politics 

only  one  that  is  allowed  to  have  pictures  of  any  living 
thing — we  were  ushered  into  the  presence  of  the  old 
dervish,  Safvet  Baba,  who  is  head  of  the  monastery. 
The  old  gentleman  bade  the  ladies  of  the  party  sit 
down  on  the  divan  to  which  he  was  chained  by  his 
rheumatism,  and,  while  we  smoked  more  cigarettes, 
discoursed  pleasantly  in  Greek  on  men  and  things. 
We  next  visited  the  ruins  of  Gnossos,  where  Mr. 
Arthur  Evans,   of  the  Ashmolean   at  Oxford,  had  been 


A   MUSSULMAN    PICXIC   NEAR   CANDIA. 

(From  a  Photo,  by  Misa  CliadK'ick.) 

lately  negotiating  for  the  purchase  of  a  piece  of  land 
with  a  view  to  excavations,  and  then  took  our  places 
beneath  the  lemon  trees  of  the  convent  garden,  where 
a  long  table  had  been  spread  for  our  entertainment.  But 
first  large  glasses  of  hot  coffee,  boiled  with  milk,  were 
served  out  to  each  member  of  the  party,  which  was  soon 
increased  by  the  arrival  of  our  host's  son-in-law  elect, 
Behar  Bey,  who — wonderful  to  relate — had  escorted  his 
fiancee  and  her  youthful  sisters  to  the  monastery.  The 
lady's  feelings,  however,  did  not  permit  her  to  appear  at 

33^^ 


in   the   Near   East 

the  board,  so  the  ladies  of  the  party  had  to  visit  her  in  the 
harem,  where  she  welcomed  them  in  excellent  French, 
and  informed  them  that  she  had  read  Gil  Bias.  On 
their  return  cognac  was  served  to  us  all  round,  our 
Moslem  friends  partaking  of  it  with  zest,  and  then 
young  Behar,  who  had  a  good  camera  with  him, 
insisted  on  taking  a  photograph  of  the  revellers,  each 
man,  with  one  exception,  tirmly  grasping  his  liqueur 
glass  in  his  hand.  That  one  exception  was  my  next- 
door  neighbour,  he  of  the  zebra  waistcoat,  who  laid  down 
his  glass  and  seized  a  loaf  of  bread  in  its  place,  only  to 
resume  his  glass  when  the  fatal  operation  w^as  over.  The 
worthy  man  was  not  quite  so  "advanced"  as  his  fellows, 
and  thought  it  prudent  that  his  alcoholic  tastes  should 
not  be  perpetuated  by  a  photograph  which  might  be  used 
as  evidence  against  him  hereafter. 

At  this  point  the  real  business  of  the  luncheon  began, 
the  first  course  consisted  of  lamb,  roasted  whole  and 
stuffed  with  pilnf]  the  particular  form  of  rice  which 
does  duty  all  over  the  Levant.  On  this  occasion  the 
rice  was  seasoned  with  cocoa-nut  and  covered  with 
raisins,  so  that  the  combination  was  somewhat  remark- 
able. At  the  last  picnic  our  host  had  given,  the  guests 
were  forced  to  eat  the  various  viands  in  Turkish  fashion 
with  their  fingers  ;  but  our  progressive  friend  had  made 
a  great  advance  since  then,  and  brand-new  knives  and 
forks  were  provided,  to  our  great  sorrow,  and  changed 
between  every  course.  Fish  followed  the  lamb,  then 
came  a  potato  stew,  especially  devised  for  our  benefit, 
"  because,"  as  our  host  said,  "  the  English  always  eat 
potatoes,"  and  then  a  fowl.  More  pilaf  next  appeared 
upon  the  scene,  and  as  at  this  period  of  the  performance 
1  showed  signs  of  intense  thirst,  the  young  progressive 
desired  I  should  slake  it  with  beer,  mixed  with  Vichy 
water — the  latter,  I   may  mention,  being  regarded  as  the 

337  ^ 


Travels  and   Politics 

greatest  triumph  of  Western  civilisation  in  Candia. 
Sweets  and  oranges  wound  up  the  repast,  and  I  thought 
that  one  more  Mussulman  picnic  on  similar  lines  would 
finish  me  off.  The  company  then  adjourned  to  another 
part  of  the  garden,  where  some  fell  asleep  and  others 
sipped  coffee.  By  this  time  the  entertainment,  which 
had  begun  a  little  after  nine  in  the  morning,  had  been 
protracted  till  three  in  the  afternoon,  and  we  thought  it 
high  time  to  uo.  But  our  host  would  not  hear  of  our 
departure,  and  the  ladies  of  the  harem  desired  that  their 
European  sisters  should  stop  all  night  as  their  guests. 
At  last,  on  condition  that  we  left  two  British  officers 
behind  to  keep  him  company,  our  good  friend  the 
doctor  let  us  go,  and  we  returned,  "  heavy  with  food," 
as  Homer  says,  to  Candia,  the  man  of  the  zebra  waistcoat 
escorting  us  back.  It  took  me  several  hours  to  sleep  off 
the  effect  of  the  varied  and  multitudinous  kinds  of  fare  of 
which  I  had  partaken.  But  the  experience  was  cheaply 
bought  at  the  price  of  a  severe  attack  of  indigestion.  To 
see  the  "  young  Turk "  at  play  is  both  amusing  and 
instructive,  and  our  host's  hospitality  knew  no  bounds. 
Politics,  even  in  this  hot-bed  of  them,  were  never  once 
mentioned,  and  we  might  have  been  living  in  profound 
peace  at  Corfu,  instead  of  in  a  state  of  civil  war  in 
Crete.  Such  aspirations  after  Western  culture  are  very 
encouraging ;  even  the  man  of  the  zebra  waistcoat  carried 
a  notebook  in  one  of  his  pockets,  in  which  he  jotted 
down  all  the  English  words  that  he  heard  in  Turkish 
characters. 

A  still  more  interesting  spectacle  was  the  open  market 
held  every  Wednesday  at  Halmyros,  a  place  on  the  sea- 
coast  about  five  miles  from  Candia,  where  the  Christians 
and  Mussulmans  met.  It  was  generally  considered  an 
excellent  idea  of  the  British  Consul-General  to  bring  the 
rival  creeds  together  at  this  meeting-place  so  that  they 

338 


in   the   Near   East 

might  have  a  chance  of  making  friends.  Several  of  these 
markets  had  already  been  held,  but  on  this  occasion  for 
the  first  time  there  was  something  like  an  amalgamation 
of  the  two  parties. 

This  Cretan  marketing  was  one  of  the  most  picturesque 
functions  at  which  it  has  been  my  good  fortune  to  assist. 
Our  party,  consisting  of  myself  and  two  ladies  attended 
by  old  Shereef  Aga,  Sir  A.  Biliotti's  faithful  cavass,  and 
the  cavass  of  the  Austrian  Vice-Consul,  started  from  Sir 
H.  Chermside's  house,  shortly  before  9.30,  in  the  presence 
of  a  curious  crowd  of  Candiotes  who  had  assembled  to 
see  us  off.  Horses  being  unprocurable,  we  mounted 
sorry-looking  donkeys  in  true  Margate  style.  Old  Shereef 
led  the  way,  bestriding  a  big  mule,  with  his  snow-white 
petticoats — he  is  a  Mussulman  Albanian  and  always  wears 
the  fiistanella — spreading  out  on  either  side  of  his  wooden 
saddle,  and  two  immense  bundles  strapped  on  behind. 
We  rode  through  the  vast  gateway  which  penetrates  the 
old  Venetian  walls  of  Candia,  and  easily  understood  how 
it  was  that  the  town,  which  derived  its  present  name  from 
its  fortifications,  was  able  to  resist  for  twenty-one  years 
the  attacks  of  the  Turks  in  the  seventeenth  century.  In 
one  corner  of  the  ramparts  the  white  tents  of  the  Welsh 
Fusileers  stood  out  against  the  blue  sky,  and  in  the  plain 
a  speck  of  red  every  few  yards  marked  the  spot  where 
a  Turkish  soldier  was  posted.  The  most  elaborate  pre- 
cautions had  been  taken  to  prevent  an  encounter  at  the 
market.  The  British  gunboat  Hussar  had  been  anchored 
off  Halmyros,  with  her  guns  all  ready  for  action.  A 
detachment  of  the  Welsh  Fusileers  under  Captain  Wynne 
guarded  the  ground  on  which  the  market  was  held,  and 
a  thousand  Turkish  troops  were  told  off  along  the  road 
to  Candia  to  protect  the  Mussulmans.  Yet  in  spite  of  all 
this,  it  was  with  some  difticulty  that  the  Turkish  governor 
who  had   been  shot  at    on   the  previous    Saturday,  was 

339 


Travels   and   Politics 

induced  to  go  out ;  but  at  last  he  rode  off  to  the 
market,  attended  by  the  Mayor  and  a  host  of  other 
local  magnates.  No  one  was  allowed  to  enter  within  the 
Hne  of  flags  which  marked  the  limits  of  the  market 
with  arms  in  his  possession,  and  two  British  soldiers 
disarmed  our  attendant,  the  Austrian  cavass,  with  such 
gusto,  that  his  mule  kicked  up  its  heels  in  the  air 
and  nearly  projected  him  over  its  head.  Even  the 
small  donkey-boy  was  relieved  of  his  switch,  and  it 
was  laughingly  suggested  that  Sir  A.  Biliotti,  who  had 
bought  a  gnarled  Cretan  stick  of  wild  olive  from  one 
of  the  Christian  vendors,  should  be  deprived  of  his  staff. 
On  the  ground  our  party  was  increased  by  Captain 
Marrack,  of  the  Royal  Oak,  who  had  had  three  years'  ex- 
perience of  the  Cretan  question  and  w^hose  ship  was  then 
stationed  off  Candia,  by  one  or  two  other  naval  officers 
and  by  the  Russian  consul  and  a  Russian  correspondent. 
There  must  have  been  several  hundred  people  on  the 
ground,  Christians  with  black  handkerchiefs  tied  round 
their  heads,  in  true  Cretan  fashion,  and  befezzed  Mussul- 
mans, some  of  whom  had  not  seen  their  Christian 
compatriots  for  a  couple  of  years.  As  for  the  actual 
marketing,  that  was- of  less  importance  than  the  oppor- 
tunity which  it  afforded  for  bringing  these  people 
together  in  a  friendly  way.  All  went  off  most  amic- 
ably, and  it  was  interesting  to  see  Sir  A.  Biliotti  and 
Sir  H.  Chermside  sitting  down  on  the  grass  surrounded 
by  a  group  of  chiefs — among  whom  were  two  members  of 
the  Cretan  Assembly — to  discuss  the  political  situation  in 
an  informal  manner.  After  the  discussion  was  over,  one 
of  the  ladies  of  our  party  obtained  leave  to  photograph 
the  group,  to  the  immense  delight  of  the  Cretan  chiefs, 
who  came  up  afterwards  and  offered  their  profuse  thanks 
for  the  honour  done  them.  The  Cretan,  Mussulman  no 
less  than  Christian,  appears  to  be  quite  aware  of  his  good 

340 


in   the   Near   East 

looks  and  martial  bearing,  in  which  he  has  no  rivals 
except  the  Montenegrins  among  the  peoples  of  the  East, 
Meanwhile  some  business  had  been  done  in  sheep, 
oranges,  sweetmeats,  and  roses,  as  well  as  in  kitchen 
utensils.  More  would  have  been  sold  had  the  Mussul- 
mans only  taken  the  trouble  to  bring  out  from  the  town 
the  two  articles  which  the  Christians  most  needed,  namely, 
farm  implements  and  seed.     However,  several  orders  were 


SIR   A.    BILIOTTI   A\D   COLONEL   SIR   H.   CHERMSIDE,   WITH    GROUP   OF 
CRETAN   CHIEFS. 

(From  CI  Photo,  by  Miss  Cliadwick.) 

given  for  next  week,  and  Sir  A.  Biliotti  expressed  himself 
quite  satisfied  with  the  progress  that  had  been  made.  On 
a  former  occasion  some  Mussulmans  who  had  bought 
sheep  from  Christians  were  so  roughly  handled  by  their 
fanatical  co-religionists  on  their  return  to  Candia,  that  the 
animals  had  to  be  escorted  through  the  streets  by  soldiers, 
while  after  another  market  a  lamb  was  actually  cut  into 
small  pieces.  This  time,  however,  order  was  perfect,  and 
the  British  officers  had  the  Turkish  troops  well  in  hand. 
At  one  moment  it  was  thought  that  the  latter  had 
approached  too   near  the  market,  whereupon  the  inter- 

341 


Travels  and   Politics 

preter  was  at  once  sent  to  tell  them  to  retire,  which  they 
did  without  demur.  When  business  was  over  we  all  sat 
down  to  an  al  fresco  lunch  in  the  middle  of  the  ground, 
in  which  the  Christians  were  immensely  interested.  And 
then  the  party  broke  up  and  I  went  to  visit  the  old 
Venetian  mill  which  the  Mussulmans  had  destroyed  in 
1896,  and  which  stands  still  inactive  on  the  margin  of  a 
deep-blue  pool — a  sad  but  typical  instance  of  this  fratri- 
cidal strife.  But  this  spectacle  of  ruin  was  relieved  by 
the  appearance  of  a  cavalcade  of  mules  coming  down  the 
mountain-side,  laden  with  sulphur  for  the  vines  of  the 
Christians,  purchased  out  of  the  Duke  of  Westminster's 
Relief  Fund.  And  then  we  returned  in  a  long  cavalcade  to 
Candia.  Unfortunately  the  recent  revival  of  fanaticism 
has  made  these  markets  impossible. 

Wretched  as  the  government  of  this  fine  island  has  been 
for  centuries,  poor  as  its  social  life  must  necessarily  be 
under  Turkish  rule,  one  not  only  finds  the  most  intense 
love  of  their  country  among  the  natives,  but  even 
foreigners  become  attached  to  the  place.  The  German 
Vice-Consul  at  Candia,  whose  wife  had  been  sent  to  her 
home  in  the  Fatherland  for  safety  during  the  disturbances, 
and  whose  house  was  burned  by  the  mob  last  month,  told 
me  that  she,  no  less  than  he,  was  devoted  to  the  island, 
in  which  for  eleven  years  he  had  resided.  And  in  two 
widely  different  spheres  there  was  peace  even  during  the 
worst  moments  of  religious  fanaticism.  The  first  was  the 
small  Greek  church  of  the  Monks  of  Sinai,  at  Candia, 
which  enjoys  a  special  firman  of  protection  from  one  of 
the  Sultan's  predecessors,  and  whose  priest  was  therefore 
able  to  cultivate  his  tiny  garden  with  equanimity  all  the 
time.  The  other  consisted  of  two  leper  villages,  one  out- 
side Canea,  the  other  beyond  the  walls  of  Candia,  where 
the  wretched  victims  of  a  common  misfortune,  though  of 
different  creed,  live  at  peace  with  each  other. 

342 


in  the  Near  East 


What  is  at  this  moment  the  greatest  evil  in  Crete  is  the 
uncertainty  of  the  future.  With  few  exceptions  all  parties 
in  the  island  wish  for  some  settlement  of  the  Cretan 
question.  Some  of  the  Christians,  who  are  in  possession 
of  the  Mussulmans'  fields  and  vineyards,  preferred  the 
present  state  of  things  to  continue  till  the  harvest  and  the 
vintage  were  over.  Some  of  the  low  class  of  Mussulmans, 


CRKTAX    BOYS. 
(Fivni  a  Photo,  hy  Miss  Clnuhcid;.) 

who  have  nothing  to  lose,  and  about  forty  Beys,  who 
have  been  at  the  bottom  of  every  agitation,  would  prefer 
the  prolongation  of  the  present  confusion.  But  most  of 
the  well-to-do  Cretans  of  both  creeds  are  sick  of  this  civil 
war,  and  would,  I  am  told,  welcome  any  real  solution  of 
the  difficulty  that  the  Powers  might  propose.  Only  let 
that  solution  come  at  once.     At  the  present  moment,  the 

343 


Travels  and  Politics  in  the  Near  East 

candidature  of  Prince  George  "  holds  the  field,"  and  it 
may  therefore  be  of  interest  to  state  the  opinions  of  repre- 
sentative persons  in  the  island  on  this  question,  which 
I  submitted  to  every  one  whom  I  considered  as  likelv  to 
know  the  requirements  of  the  Cretans.  So  far  as  the 
Christians  are  concerned,  there  is  no  doubt  whatever  that 
they  would  welcome  the  Prince  with  enthusiasm.  But 
like  all  the  Cretans,  being  intensely  insular,  they  will  pro- 
bably resent  in  the  long  run  the  bestowal  of  offices  upon 
the  little  band  of  continental  Greeks  who  are  certain  to 
accompany  Prince  George  from  Athens.  Place-hunting 
in  Crete,  as  on  the  mainland,  is  a  favourite  pursuit  with 
the  educated,  and  the  cry  will  soon  go  up,  that  the  nati\  es 
are  being  ousted  by  the  new-comers.  Moreover,  if  the 
Prince  attempts,  as  is  likely,  to  be  absolutely  impartial  to 
Christians  and  Mussulmans,  he  will  disappoint  the  hopes 
of  the  former,  who  expect  to  have  things  all  their  own 
way.  Statistics  are  very  hard  to  obtain  in  Crete,  but 
according  to  the  census  made  under  Photiades  Pasha  in 
i88r  (the  last  figures  procurable),  there  were  205,000 
Orthodox  Greeks  and  only  73,234  Mussulmans  in  the 
island,  in  spite  of  the  efforts  of  the  Turkish  Government 
to  increase  the  number  of  the  latter  by  the  immigration 
of  Arabs.  Hitherto,  thanks  to  the  Turkish  Government 
and  the  Turkish  soldiers,  this  minority  has  been  able  to 
regard  itself  as  the  dominant  class ;  but,  with  a  Greek 
Prince  as  governor,  there  will  be  a  danger  that  the 
majority  will  endeavour  to  over-ride  the  rights  of  the 
minority  and  will  resent  the  well-meant  efforts  of  the  new 
ruler  to  preserve  fair  treatment  for  all.  The  Mussulmans, 
however,  with  the  few  exceptions  above  mentioned,  would 
probably  accept  the  Prince,  provided  that  he  came  with 
the  consent  of  the  Sultan  and  also  providing  that  the 
Sultan,  having  given  his  consent,  did  not  then  intrigue 
against  him. 

344 


Travels  and   Politics 

It  is  well  known  that  the  rishig  of  last  year,  as  well  as 
the  massacre  at  Canclia  in  September,  was  instigated  from 
Constantinople,  whence  the  usual  argumenis  were  applied 
to  the  inborn  fanaticism  of  the  Cretan  Mussulmans  and 
the  usual  orders  issued  to  the  Turkish  soldiers.  The 
point-blank  refusal  of  the  Turkish  Finance  Minister  to 
sanction  the  loan  of  ^T.ioo,ooo  desired  by  the  Cretan 
Assembly,  was  the  last  straw  which  provoked  this  insur- 
rection. If  Prince  George  be  installed  in  Crete,  without 
the  consent  of  the  Sultan,  his  life  will  not  be  safe,  for  all 
the  Concert's  ships  and  all  its  men  cannot  save  him  from 
the  dagger  of  a  resolute  fanatic.  That  the  Mussulmans 
will  actively  resist  his  appointment,  if  they  are  left  to 
themselves,  I  do  not  believe.  But  all  persons,  whom  I 
have  consulted,  agree  that  two  points  are  absolutely  es- 
sential to  his  appointment.  First,  the  Turkish  troops 
must  all  be  withdrawn  before  his  arrival,  an  event  now 
at  last  accomplished  ;  and  secondly,  the  International 
forces  must  remain  for  at  least  two,  and  probably  five 
years  after  it.  So  long  as  the  Turkish  soldiers  remained, 
the  Mussulman  minority  would  feel  tempted  to  indulge 
in  its  old  feud  with  the  Christian  majority.  On  the 
other  hand,  there  must  be  some  force,  and  that  a  con- 
siderable one,  to  preserve,  or  rather  to  restore,  order  in 
the  island — for  the  whole  of  the  interior  is  still  in  a  state 
of  confusion,  and  Crete  is  not  merely,  as  the  Great  Powers 
seem  to  have  imagined  when  they  entrusted  authority  to 
the  admirals,  three  or  four  harbours  and  a  coast-line. 
Moreover,  no  Government  can  be  really  successful  in 
Crete  unless  it  has  ample  funds  at  its  disposal  for  the 
development  of  the  island.  During  the  229  years  that 
have  elapsed  since  the  island  surrendered  after  a  twenty- 
four  years'  siege  to  their  troops,  the  Turks  have  hardly 
constructed  one  single  public  work,  except  barracks  and 
the  water-supply  of  Candia,  the  two  essentials  of  a  Mus- 

346 


in  the  Near  East 

sulman  Power.  There  is  but  one  carriageable  road  in 
the  island,  that  which  unites  Canea  and  Suda.  In  Candia, 
the  largest  town  in  the  island,  there  are  no  carriages  ;  for 
the  two  that  used  to  exist  were  last  employed  for  the  con- 
veyance of  the  admirals  on  the  Queen's  Jubilee  last  year, 
on  which  occasion  the  bottoms  of  both  vehicles  fell  out, 
and  the  distinguished  officers  had  to  walk  inside  the 
bottomless  machines  !  During  the  brief  Egyptian  oc- 
cupation, between  1832  and  1840,  attempts  were  made  to 
improve  the  means  of  communication,  but  the  Turks 
allowed  them  to  deteriorate,  and  at  present  the  only 
method  of  reaching  the  interior  is  by  horse  or  mule, 
sometimes  on  a  wooden  saddle  which  makes  the  rider 
feel  every  stone  on  the  dry  river-bed,  which  here,  as  in 
other  parts  of  Turkey,  passes  for  a  road.  This  was  one 
of  the  chief  grievances  which  led  to  the  insurrection  of 
1866-68.  Not  a  bridge  has  been  constructed  since  the 
Venetians  left,  agriculture  is  still  as  primitive  as  in  the 
time  of  the  Arab  or  Roman  domination,  and  the  scheme 
of  tramways,  which  has  been  advocated  by  M.  Lyghounes 
of  Canea,  has  hitherto  met  with  the  opposition  of  the 
reactionary  Beys,  who  fear,  as  their  fellows  did  in  Mace- 
donia, when  the  railway  was  made  from  Salonica  to 
Mitrovica,  that  their  property  would  suffer  from  the  new 
facilities  thus  afforded.  A  good  harbour,  too,  is  badly 
wanted  at  Candia ;  in  fact,  in  Crete  everything  has  to  be 
created,  and  nothing  can  be  done  without  money,  of 
which  Prince  George  is  not  generally  supposed  to  have 
much  at  his  disposal.  It  may  be  remembered,  that  a 
loan  of  at  least  six  million  francs,  guaranteed  by  the 
Powers,  was  one  of  the  proposals  submitted  by  France 
last  year  for  the  settlement  of  the  Cretan  question. 

For  this  reason,  as  well  as  on  account  of  the  Prince's 
inexperience,  his  wretched  fiasco  in  the  late  war,  and 
above  all  in  consequence  of  the  difference  of  creed  among 

347 


Travels  and   Politics 

the  Cretans  whom  he  would  have  to  rule,  not  a  few  think, 
and  I  confess  I  am  one  of  them,  that  a  governor  who  was 
neither  a  Greek  nor  a  Turk,  hut  who  had  had  experience 
in  managing  Orientals  of  different  religions,  would  have 
been  a  far  better  choice.  Practically,  only  two  countries 
could  supply  such  a  man.  Great  Britain  from  her  Anglo- 
Indian  officials,  and  Austria-Hungary  from  her  staff  of 
administrators  in  Bosnia  and  the  Hercegovina.  Great 
Britain  having  been  excluded  by  Lord  Salisbury's  self- 
denying  ordinance  and  by  the  idea,  universally  prevalent 
in  the  Levant,  that  we  want  Suda  bay,  an  idea  not 
shared,  I  may  reniark,  by  our  naval  officers  on  the  spot, 
who  pointed  out  to  me  that  Suda  bay  is  by  no  means 
safe,  that  Cyprus  and  Malta  enable  us  to  dispense  with  it, 
and  that  it  would  be  impossible  to  hold  it  without  the 
command  of  the  hills  around  it,  the  choice  is  narrowed 
to  an  Austro-Hungarian  subject.  For  my  part,  having 
seen  what  has  been  effected  in  Bosnia  and  the  Herce- 
govina in  the  last  twenty  years  under  conditions  very 
similar  to  those  of  Crete,  I  cannot  conceive  of  any  better 
selection,  and  have  met  several  Austro-Hungarian  officials 
who  would  fulfil  all  the  requirements  of  the  post.  This 
opinion  is  also  that  of  so  experienced  a  diplomatist  as 
Sir  Horace  Rumbold,  British  Ambassador  at  Vienna,  who 
told  Count  Goluchowski  that  :  "  An  Austro-Hungarian 
officer  of  distinction,  especially  one  who  had  been 
employed  in  Bosnia,  would  seem  to  me  to  have  the  best 
qualifications  required."^  F'or,  in  Crete,  as  in  Bosnia,  there 
never  were  many  actual  Turks  outside  the  few  Pashas 
sent  there  to  govern  the  country,  but  the  populations, 
Christian  and  Mussulman  alike,  were  of  the  same  race, 
being  in  Bosnia  both  Serbs,  and  in  Crete  both  Greeks. 
Although  a  large  number  of  Cretans  embraced  the  faith 
of  Islam  soon  after  the  Turkish  conquest,  some  conver- 

'  Turkcv,  No.  12  (1897),  p.  12. 


in   the   Near   East 

sions  are  of  quite  recent  date.  Under  such  circumstances, 
no  one  but  an  outsider  could  deal  out  open-handed 
justice  to  both  parties.  I  do  not  doubt  that  Prince 
George  will  endeavour  to  do  so,  but  he  must  rely  for 
advice,  either  upon  the  foreign  consuls  or  upon  extreme 
partisans  of  either  side,  Greek  advocates  or  Mussulman 
Beys,  while  an  experienced  European  administrator 
would  be  able  to  judge  for  himself.  Moreover,  if  the 
Concert  of  Europe  had  any  sense  of  humour,  or  con- 
ducted its  affairs  on  business-like  principles,  it  would 
hardly  entrust  the  difficult  task  of  governing  Crete  to  a 
young  man,  who  had  signally  failed  in  the  one  thing  that 
he  has  undertaken. 

Such  an  arrangement  as  I  have  suggested  would  not 
prevent  the  ultimate  union  of  Crete  with  Greece,  should 
the  Cretans  so  desire  it.  As  far  back  as  November  i6, 
1866,  during  the  Cretan  insurrection  of  that  year,  Prince 
Gortschakoff  wrote  to  his  Ambassador  in  Paris  :  "Nous 
ne  voyons  qu'une  issue  possible,  e'est  I'annexion  de  la 
Candie  au  royaume  de  Grece."  But  on  this  last  point  1 
venture  to  express  my  doubts.  As  was  pointed  out  in  the 
chapter  on  the  Ionian  Islands,  an  immense  decline  in 
material  prosperity  has  resulted  from  their  annexation  to 
the  Greek  kingdom,  and  their  removal  from  the  British 
Protectorate.  Cretans  themselves  have  informed  me  that 
if  their  island  could  enjoy  for  a  spell  of  years  the  blessings 
of  Western  government,  of  which,  as  yet,  the  mass  of  the 
islanders  can  form  no  idea  whatever,  having  never  ex- 
perienced it,  the  natives  would  hesitate  to  purchase  union 
with  Greece  at  the  price  of  high  taxes,  compulsory 
military  service  and  government  from  the  mainland.  It 
may  be  remarked  that  at  the  beginning  of  the  War  of 
Independence,  the  Cretans  were  not  very  keen  for  the 
Greek  cause  ;  while  in  the  early  days  of  the  Cretan  in- 
surrection of  1866-68  there  was  no  desire  for  annexation 

349 


Travels  and   Politics 

to  Greece,  though  later  on  the  Assembly  declared  for  it. 
At  present,  of  course,  there  is  a  keen  desire  for  union 
among  most  of  the  Cretan  Christians,  whose  views  may 
be  summarised  in  the  remark  which  the  Archbishop  made 
to  me  :  "  A  daughter  loves  her  mother  however  poor  she 
may  be."  But  at  this  moment  the  Cretan  Christians  are 
hardly  in  a  position  to  judge  on  this  point.  They  rightly 
feel  that  anything  would;  be  better  than  Turkish  rule; 
they  cannot  'compare    the  advantages    of  Western   with 


A    BAIRAM    RAM  :    CANEA. 

(Fiv)n  a  Photo,  bv  Miss  Cliadicick.] 


Greek  administration.  At  any  rate,  a  preliminary  period 
of  European  government  would  be  the  best  possible  pre- 
paration from  the  material  standpoint  for  them,  as  it  was 
for  the  Ionian  Islanders. 

But  anything  is  preferable  to  the  Turkish  rule  of  this 
magnificent  island.  Eight  times  this  century  has  Crete 
risen  in  insurrection,  and,  so  far  as  material  progress  is 
concerned,  the  island  was  better  off  in  the  seventeenth 
century  than  it  is  now.  The  recent  Turkish  governors, 
with   the  exception  of  Photiades  and   Karatheodori,   the 


in   the   Near   East 

former  of  whom  governed  peacefully  with  the  Pact  of 
Halepa,  and  the  latter  left  a  pleasant  memory  behind  him, 
have  been  either  knaves  or  fools.  One  of  them  earned 
the  difficult  distinction  of  being  the  greatest  thief  in  the 
Empire.  Another  was  so  weak,  that  at  a  crisis  he  hurst 
into  a  flood  of  tears  and  besought  a  newspaper  correspon- 
dent to  save  him  ;  while  a  third,  having  scraped  together 
a  sufficient  income,  fled  from  his  post,  and  is  now  living 
abroad.  None  of  them  pretended  to  do  anything  for 
public  security  in  the  island  ;  in  fact,  a  Turkish  governor, 
on  hearing  that  a  certain  European  had  passed  many 
years  in  Crete,  naively  remarked  :  "  Ah,  you  must  be  a 
very  courageous  man."  Of  Turkish  justice  these  two 
examples  will  suffice.  There  used  to  be  an  advocate  who 
was  brother-in-law  of  the  judge,  and  whose  practice  it 
was  to  put  up  his  clients'  cases  to  auction  by  agreement 
with  the  counsel  for  the  other  side  and  with  the  judge. 
The  highest  bidder  obtained  judgment.  In  another  case, 
a  landed  proprietor,  whose  sheep  had  been  stolen,  found 
the  name  of  the  thief  inserted  in  place  of  his  own  on  the 
writ.  As  the  result  of  this  error  he,  and  not  the  culprit, 
was  arrested,  put  in  prison  for  ten  days,  and  then  tried 
and  convicted  for  the  theft  of  his  own  sheep  ! 

That  the  Sultan  would  personally  object  to  the  virtual 
loss  of  Crete  is  doubted  by  those  who  know  how  little  he 
gets  out  of  it.  The  Cretan  dues  are  paid  into  the  douanes 
at  Smyrna,  and  much  of  them  stick  on  the  way,  while  the 
cost  of  suppressing  Cretan  insurrections  has  from  first  to 
last  been  enormous.  "  No  other  part  of  the  Ottoman 
Empire,"  wrote  Von  Hammer,  the  great  historian  of 
Turkey,  "has  been  so  hard  to  gain  "  ;  and,  one  may  add, 
none  has  been  so  expensive  to  keep.  But  Abdul  Hamid 
has  been  bombarded  with  petitions  from  some  of  the 
local  Beys,  who  have  represented  it  as  a  question  of 
national  honour  that  the  Turks  should  retain  hold  of  an 


Travels  and  Politics  in  the  Near  East 

island  whicli  it  cost  their  forefathers  so  many  years  to 
conquer,  and  the  result  of  the  late  war  has,  of  course, 
encouraged  their  friends  at  Constantinople,  In  Crete,  at 
any  rate,  no  one  is  very  sanguine  that  Prince  George,  or 
indeed  any  governor,  will  arrive  in  the  island  for  some 
time  to  come.  Promptitude  above  all  else  is  required  in 
Crete,  but  how  can  that  be  expected  from  the  Concert  of 
Europe,  whether  composed  of  six  Powers,  or  reduced,  as 
it  now  is,  to  four  ? 


■ 

^-  -i.^ 

^r-  i 

& 

'       "- 

,ir 

^^ 

'\  ' 

m 

^ 

CRPTAX    LADIES    SHOPl'lXC. 
(From  a  Photo,  by  Miss  Chaduick.) 


352 


CHAPTER  X 

SAMOS :    A   STUDY    IN   AUTONOMY 

THERE  had  been  so  much  talk  about  Samian 
autonomy  in  connection  with  the  Cretan  question, 
and  so  Httle  seemed  to  be  known  about  the  government 
of   the    island,    that    I   was   exceedingly  anxious  to  visit 


"""T^ 

«.^ 

M 

■jL^^ 

HibM 

Milt^"'>li;mT-^^^-'"'''"                 ««J^E^I 

VATHY  :    SAMOS. 
[From  a  Pholc.  by  Miss  Chachvick.) 

Samos  and  see  for  myself  how  it  compares  with  other 
parts  of  the  Turkish  Empire.  My  visit  proved  to  me 
beyond  all  doubt  the  immense  advantages  which  an 
autonomous  province  enjoys  over  the  immediate  posses- 
sions of  the  Sultan.    The  Eastern  proverb  says  that  "grass 

353  2A 


Travels  and   Politics 

never  grows  where  the  Turk's  horse  has  trod,"  and  too 
many  of  the  ^gean  islands,  robbed  of  their  fohage  and 
reduced  to  mere  arid  rocks  during  the  War  of  Independ- 
ence, bear  witness  to  the  truth  of  the  maxim.  But  Samos 
is  one  of  the  lovehest  spots  in  the  Levant.  As  you  enter 
the  beautiful  harbour  of  Vathy  between  hills  clothed  with 
verdure  to  the  summit  and  rich  with  vineyards  and  olive- 
yards,  you  seem  to  be  transported  to  some  fairy  scene, 
where  Nature  has  done  everything  for  the  benefit  of  man. 
Land  on  the  quay,  and  the  trim  white  houses  and  spotless 
streets  speak  of  prosperity  and  good  administration  such 
as  are  rare  in  the  Near  East.  A  miniature  Eiffel  Tower 
stands  in  a  small  square  by  the  harbour,  and  around  are 
countless  depots  of  the  far-famed  Samian  cigarettes, 
which,  sold  on  the  spot  for  a  franc  and  a  half  a  hundred, 
make  the  island  the  paradise  of  the  smoker.  It  was  a 
festival  when  we  arrived,  and  the  inhabitants  had  all 
turned  out  in  their  best  dress  in  honour  of  the  day. 
Tall  islanders  in  irreproachably  snow-white  stockings  and 
baggy  dark-blue  breeches,  with  the  long-tasselled  fez  upon 
their  heads,  were  strolling  about  the  quay  or  sitting  in  the 
cafes  smoking  and  talking — the  very  ideal  of  Greek  life. 
Every  few  minutes  from  the  hills  above  the  harbour  rang 
out  the  crack  of  rifles  and  the  roar  of  cannon,  for  the 
Samians  were  showing  their  joy  at  the  festival  in  true 
Greek  fashion  by  letting  off  all  the  firearms  that  they 
possessed.  Close  by  my  ears  one  merry  fellow  discharged 
an  old  blunderbuss  that  looked  as  if  it  might  have  done 
service  in  the  War  of  Independence  against  the  Capitan 
Pasha.  Everywhere  the  Samian  colours  were  flying,  for 
the  Principality  possesses  a  flag  of  its  own,  and  the  sole 
representatives  of  the  Turkish  suzerain  who  were  visible 
in  the  streets  were  a  few  tall  and  well-dressed  gendarmes 
in  dark-blue  and  red  petticoats  and  gaiters,  whose 
accoutrements   contrasted   strangely   with    those   of    the 

354 


in  the  Near  East 


slip-shod    tatterdemalions     who    serve    the    Turk    else- 
where. 

Accompanied  by  the  British  Consul,  we  hastened  to 
pay  our  respects  to  the  Prince,  for  it  chanced  to  be  his 
reception  day.  Four  gendarmes  guarded  the  door  of  the 
palace,  a  square  building  which  stands  on  the  quay,  but 
their  presence  is  merely  for  form's  sake,  for  the  Prince  is 


POLICEMAN   AT   VATHY. 

(Front  a  Photo,  hy  Miss  Chachvick. 


accessible  to  all  his  subjects  and  needs  no  protection 
from  those  whom  he  governs.  Without  the  slightest 
ceremony  we  were  ushered  into  the  reception-room, 
where  his  Highness  and  the  Princess  Marie  were  busy 
shaking  hands  with  a  crowd  of  Samians  of  all  sorts  and 
conditions  from  the  smart  merchant  down  to  the  collarless 
boatman,  who  kissed  the  Princess's  hand  with  that  easy 

355 


Travels   and   Politics 

grace  common  to  all  the  Greeks.  The  Prince,  or 
'HyefuLv,  Stephanos  Mousourus,  speaks  EngHsh  perfectly, 
and  not  only  has  no  accent,  but  uses  idioms  with  an 
accuracy  which  many  Englishmen  might  envy.  But  this 
is  not  to  be  wondered  at  when  it  is  remembered  that  his 
father  was  for  nearly  thirty  years  Turkish  Ambassador  in 
London  before  the  late  Rustem  Pasha,  and  was  in 
his  day  one  of  the  most  familiar  figures  in  society,  of 
which,  as  the  doyen  of  the  diplomatic  body,  he  was  an 
important  personage.  The  son — who  is  the  eleventh 
Prince  of  Samos  since  the  island  was  formed  into  an 
autonomous  principality,  under  the  guarantee  of  Great 
Britain,  France,  and  Russia  in  1832 — is  a  man  of  fifty- 
seven,  and  has  spent  the  last  two  years  in  his  present 
position.  While  French  fomiaiUs  were  handed  round  to 
his  guests  he  discoursed  to  me  on  men  and  things, 
showing,  what  is  very  rare  in  a  Turkish  official,  a  keen 
sense  of  humour.  He  has,  indeed,  at  Vathy  a  delightfully 
easy  post,  which  the  future  Governor  of  Crete  might  well 
envy.  For  there  is  this  great  and,  to  my  mind,  fundamental 
difference  betw^een  the  two  islands,  which  Lord  Stanley, 
at  that  time  Foreign  Secretary,  pointed  out  over  thirty 
years  ago,  that  while  in  Crete  one-third  of  the  population  is 
Mussulman  and  two-thirds  are  Christian,  in  Samos  out  of 
a  population  of  49,733,  according  to  the  latest  available 
figures,  those  for  1896,  no  fewer  than  49,697  belonged  to 
the  Orthodox  Greek  Church.  Indeed  it  is  said  that, 
outside  the  gendarmes  and  a  small  Turkish  garrison 
emblematic  of  the  Sultan's  suzerainty,  there  are  only 
eight  Mussulmans  in  the  island.  Where  there  is  such 
a  vast  preponderance  of  one  religion  ever  all  others, 
there  is  no  fear  of  fanaticism,  such  as  has  been  the 
curse  of  Crete,  and  accordingly  there  is  no  real  parallel 
between  the  two  cases.  Whenever  the  Sultan  has  sought 
a  Christian  Governor  for  the  Cretans,  he  has,  nevertheless, 


in   the   Near   East 

moved  the  Prince  of  Samos  for  the  time  being  to  the 
konak  at  Canea.  Thus,  Georgi  Berovic,  the  last  Christian 
Governor  of  Crete  before  the  intervention  of  the  Powers, 
had  previously  been  Prince  of  Samos  ;  and,  after  his 
hasty  flight  to  Corfu,  leaving  Crete  to  chaos  and  the 
Concert  of  Europe,  the  Porte  actually  appointed  in 
his  stead  another  ex-Prince  of  Samos,  Photiades  Bey. 
Alexander  Karatheodori,  the  model  Turkish  governor, 
also  filled  both  positions,  and  succeeded  in  remaining 
at  Vathy  for  the  longest  period  yet  known — nine  years. 
Although  it  rose  against  the  Turk  in  the  War  of  Inde- 
pendence, during  the  two  generations  of  its  autonomy 
Samos  has  been  in  the  happy  position  of  having  no 
history.  Looking  over  its  annals  for  this  period,  I  can 
find  nothing  more  eventful  to  relate  than  the  names  and 
accessions  of  its  eleven  Princes,  the  visit  of  the  King  of 
the  Belgians,  the  opening  of  the  college,  called  after  the 
greatest  of  all  Samians,  Pythagoras,  and  the  laying  of  one 
or  two  foundation-stones.  Daring  the  same  period  of 
time,  Crete,  under  immediate  Turkish  rule,  save  for  the 
brief  Egyptian  interlude,  has  undergone  seven  revolu- 
tions. The  Samian  privileges  were  confirmed  and 
increased  in  1850,  and  have  caused  general  satisfaction 
alike  to  the  people  and  to  the  Porte.  Among  other 
blessings,  the  island  possesses  that  unique  one  among  all 
the  Principalities  and  Powers  of  this  world — the  absence 
of  a  National  Debt.  Like  Cyprus,  it  pays  an  annual 
tribute — in  this  case  of  300,000  piastres,  or  about  _/,"2,5oo 
— to  the  Sultan  ;  but,  even  so,  it  easily  makes  both  ends 
meet  ;  for  it  is  a  rich  island,  and,  when  once  the  tribute 
has  been  paid,  the  Turkish  Government  has  nothing  more 
to  say.  There  is  a  Senate  of  four  persons,  representing 
the  four  districts  of  the  island,  who  are  selected  by  the 
Prince  out  of  a  list  of  eight  submitted  to  him  every  year 
by  the   National   Assembly,  as  prescribed  by  the  Organic 

357 


Travels  and   Politics 

statute.  The  Senators  must  be  "able  to  read  and  write, 
and  be  not  less  than  thirty  years  of  age."  This  arrange- 
ment is  found  to  work  well.  The  laws  of  the  island  are 
as  good  as  its  tobacco,  and  its  famous,  if  somewhat  sickly- 
sweet,  wine,  of  which  Byron  sang  the  praises  ;  public 
safety  is  well  maintained,  and,  in  the  words  of  our  Consul, 
"  persons  can  travel  about  all  over  Samos,  day  or  night, 
without  the  slightest  fear  of  molestation." 

With  such  a  record  as  this,  and  with  a  climate  so  benign 
that  the  death-rate  of  Vathy  is  only  13  per  thousand,  the 
Samians  ought,  indeed,  to  take  warning  by  their  old 
tyrant,  Polykrates,  and  throw  what  they  prize  best  into  the 
sea,  lest  their  too-good  fortune  offend  the  gods.  They 
have  an  elaborate  system  of  public  education,  as  befits  an 
island  which  in  ancient  days  produced  so  many  sages 
and  taught  the  Athenians  the  Ionian  alphabet.  There 
are,  according  to  the  latest  figures,  48  public  schools,  or 
about  one  per  thousand  of  the  whole  population,  which 
contain  6,033  pi^pi^^  ^^  both  sexes.  There  are  94  teachers 
employed  in  these  establishments.  The  educational 
system  of  the  island  culminates  in  the  above-mentioned 
Pythagoreum,  an  institution  which  attracts  pupils  from 
Crete  and  other  islands  as  well  as  from  Samos  itself.  Not 
without  reason,  therefore,  does  an  enthusiastic  Samian 
writer  compare  it  to  a  "  lighthouse,  spreading  its  light 
far  and  wide  in  the  Levant."  The  teachers  in  the  various 
public  schools  of  the  island,  the  officials,  and  most  of  the 
doctors  and  lawyers  are  among  its  aliiinni.  But  the 
Samians  are  not  content  to  stand  still  in  the  matter  of 
education.  They  feel  the  lack  of  technical  instruction  in 
agriculture,  seeing  that  the  majority  of  the  inhabitants  are 
engaged  in  agricultural  pursuits,  of  infant  schools  on  the 
Kindergarten  system,  and  of  higher  female  education.  An 
elaborate  memorial  on  these  subjects  was  drawn  up  by 
the  Principal  of    the  Pythagoreum    and    laid    before  the 

35« 


in   the   Near   East 

Prince  and  the  National  Assembly  some  time  ago.  A 
small  archaeological  museum  has  been  lately  founded  to 
preserve  the  scattered  memorials  of  the  island's  great  past, 
and  has  awakened  much  patriotic  interest  among  the 
inhabitants.  Nothing  struck  me  more  forcibly  in  Samos 
than  the    excellent  postal  arrangements,    for  these  in  its 


SAMIANS. 
{From  a  Photo,  by  Miss  Cliachciik. 


immediate  dominions  the  Turkish  Government  is  never 
able  to  make.  But  at  Vathy  I  found  a  neat  post-offtce 
with  a  French-speaking  postmaster,  who  actually  took  the 
trouble  to  despatch  his  mails  at  the  proper  hours  and 
sort  his  letters  in  a  business-like  fashion.  Yet  of  one  thing 
the  Samians,  whom  I  met,  complained.  They  said  that 
they  had  no  amusements,  and  that  they  found  even  their 

359 


Travels  and  Politics 

paradise  dull  without  the  excitements  of  the  modern  man. 
As  that  appears  to  be  their  only  grievance,  one  is  justified 
in  assuming  that  the  experiment  of  autonomy  in  Samos 
has  been  a  complete  success,  and  might  with  advantage 
be  applied  to  the  other  Turkish  islands,  where  the  popu- 
lation is  like  that  of  Samos,  largely  Greek.  But  for  the 
government  of  a  mixed  community  there  is  little  to  be 
learned  from  this  example.  Certainly,  for  many  years 
past,  the  Samians  have  had  good  cause  to  congratulate 
themselves  on  the  unique  position  which  they  have  so 
long  held,  not  only  as  compared  with  their  fellow-Greeks 
in  other  parts  of  Turkey,  but  with  the  highly  taxed  and 
hitherto  badly  administered  subjects  of  the  Hellenic 
Kingdom,  The  Sultan,  too,  were  he  wise,  would  see  the 
advantage  of  extending  a  system  which  secures  him  a 
fixed  and  regularly  paid  income,  without  expenditure  of 
either  blood  or  treasure.  Though  here,  as  elsewhere  in  the 
Levant,  Great  Britain  is  gradually  losing  her  trade  to  the 
ubiquitous  Germans,  she  has,  however,  the  satisfaction  of 
having  achieved  by  her  share  in  the  joint  protection  of 
Samos,  at  least  one  really  successful  stroke  of  policy  in 
the  Near  East. 

A  still  smaller  island,  but  in  a  very  different  part  of  the 
Orient,  gives  us  a  further  example  of  the  happiness  which 
may  be  secured  by  the  practical  separation  of  an  Ottoman 
possession  from  the  immediate  sway  of  the  Sultan. 
Travelling  down  the  Danube  soon  after  the  blowing  up 
of  the  Iron  Gates  had  freed  that  river  to  the  commerce 
of  nations,  I  lighted,  just  above  that  once  impenetrable 
barrier  of  rock  and  close  to  the  spot  where  the  three 
kingdoms  of  Hungary,  Roumania  and  Servia  meet,  upon 
an  island  in  the  stream,  which  belonged  to  none  of  these 
three  riverain  states.  For  here  is  one  of  those  curious  geo- 
graphical anomalies  which  are  the  delight  of  diplomacy. 
Landing  on  this  island  of  Ada-Kaleh,  you  are  transported 

360 


in   the   Near   East 

back  to  the  bad  old  times,  when  the  Crescent  still  waved 
over  the  Danube  and  the  Turk  was  at  the  gates  of 
Vienna.  Few  people  in  Western  Europe  know  that 
there  still  exists  on  this  islet,  half-way  in  mid-stream 
between  Hungary  and  Servia,  a  Turkish  colony,  pre- 
serving its  own  laws,  worshipping  in  its  own  fashion, 
electing  its  own  chief  magistrate,  and  protected,  just  as 
Bosnia  is  protected,  by  the  sheltering  wings  of  the 
Austrian  double-eagle.  From  the  dismantled  battlements 
of  its  citadel  the  Turkish  flag  still  flies,  while  a  genuine 
Turkish  bazar,  presenting  rather  a  bank-holiday  appear- 
ance, and  a  large  mosque  with  some  fine  old  Turkish 
tombs  adjoining  it,  testify  to  the  nationality  of  the 
islanders.  On  the  steamer  I  met  the  burgomaster,  as  the 
Austrians  call  him — a  big,  burly  Turk,  with  a  flowing 
white  beard.  Although  the  Treaty  of  Berlin  has  given 
Austria-Hungary  the  right  of  garrisoning  the  island  and 
she  keeps  a  company  of  soldiers  there,  the  burgomaster 
finds  no  difficulty  in  keeping  order  among  his  480  subjects. 
Enjoying  practical  freedom  from  Custom's  dues  the  natives 
of  Ada-Kaleh  drive  a  roaring  trade,  and  have  no  wish  to  be 
annexed  by  any  of  their  neighbours,  and  the  prosperity  of 
their  little  community  under  Austro-Hungarian  protection 
forms  a  striking  contrast  to  the  anarchy  which  prevails  in 
the  Turkish  Empire.  Ada-Kaleh  (its  name  is  Turkish 
for  ''the  island-castle")  was  once  a  fortress  of  enormous 
strength,  a  barrier  as  effective  as  the  Iron  Gates  them- 
selves ;  but  its  triple  ring  of  forts  and  moats  is  now 
abandoned  to  the  lizards  and  the  frogs,  and  a  stone 
bearing  a  fine  Turkish  inscription  with  a  German  trans- 
lation is  all  that  is  left  to  tell  of  the  great  deeds  of 
Mahmud  Khan,  the  terror  of  all  his  neighbours,  who 
used  to  swoop  down  from  this  island  home  upon  the 
fertile  plains  of  Hungary  in  the  days  gone  by,  and  died  in 
1739 — the  same  year  that  the  Austrian  troops  retired  from 

361 


Travels  and  Politics  in  the  Near  East 

Servia,  and  that  country  fell  once  more  beneath  the 
Turkish  sway.  Those  who  believe  that  the  true  solution 
of  the  Eastern  question  is  a  Western  protectorate,  will 
find  their  theory  carried  out  in  practice  on  a  very  small 
scale  in  this  miniature  commonwealth. 


362 


CHAPTER   XI 

THE    PROMISED    LAND  :    MACEDONIA 

SALON  I CA  is  undoubtedly  the  key  of  Macedonia, 
that  promised  land  for  which  six  Balkan  nationalities 
and  at  least  one  great  European  Power  are  eagerly 
scheming.  As  such  the  ancient  city  of  Thessalonica  is 
only  second  in  importance  to  Constantinople  itself.  In 
every  age  it  has  played  an  imposing  part.  It  has  shared 
with  the  Imperial  residence  on  the  Bosporus  the  glory 
of  being  the  capital  of  the  whole  Balkan  Peninsula. 
Against  its  walls,  as  against  those  of  Constantinople,  the 
forces  of  many  great  captains  have  been  directed,  and 
in  the  late  Greco-Turkish  war  the  bombardment  of 
Salonica  by  the  Hellenic  fleet  would,  if  it  had  not  been 
prevented  by  the  Powers,  have  materially  crippled  the 
resources  of  the  Turks.  Since  the  completion  of  the 
Constantinople  Junction  railway,  which  was  the  right 
arm  of  the  Ottoman  Government  in  that  struggle,  and 
enabled  the  Turks  to  strike  hard  and  quickly  at  their  foes, 
the  old  town  has  become  a  railway  terminus  of  the 
utmost  value  to  its  Turkish  owners.  Three  lines  now 
converge  at  this  spot — that  from  Constantinople,  that 
from  Belgrade  and  Nis,  and  that  from  Monastir,  which 
connects  the  sea  with  the  heart  of  Macedonia.  Besides, 
Salonica,  in  spite  of  the  depression  caused  by  the  political 
events  of  the  past  three  years,  is  one  of  the  most 
flourishing  commercial  towns  of  Eastern  Europe.  It 
was  intended  by  nature  to  be  the  outlet  for  the  trade  of 

363 


Travels  and  Politics  in  the  Near  East 

the  whole  Peninsula  on  the  ^Egean,  just  as  in  mediaeval 
times  Ragusa  was  the  outlet  on  the  Adriatic.  And  when 
the  long-planned  railway  line  between  Sarajevo  and 
Mitrovica  is  at  last  made,  Salonica  may  perhaps  supersede 
Brindisi  as  the  port  of  embarkation  for  travellers  and 
mails  cii  route  for  India  and  Egypt. 

Seen  from  the  sea,  Salonica  is  one  of  the  most  beautiful 
cities  of  the  East.  As  you  enter  the  gulf,  with  the  broad 
mass  of  Olympus,  crowned  with  a  diadem  of  snow,  on 
your  left,  you  see  at  the  end  a  walled  city,  lying  in  an 
amphitheatre  of  low  hills  straight  before  you.  As  you 
approach,  the  countless  minarets  and  the  dark  cypresses, 
which  form  a  background  to  their  snow-white  com- 
panions, have  that  unmistakably  Eastern  look  which 
modern  Athens  lacks  and  modern  Belgrade  has  lost. 
And  the  white  walls  which  still  surround  Salonica  on 
three  sides  give  it  an  appearance  of  compactness  which 
the  average  straggling  nineteenth  century  town  never 
possesses.  The  round  Norman  tower  on  the  quay 
reminds  you,  in  spite  of  its  recent  whitewashing  in 
honour  of  the  King  of  Servia's  visit,  of  the  far-off  days, 
seven  centuries  ago,  when  Tancred  captured  Salonica 
with  his  Sicilian  host.  In  the  street  which  runs  through 
the  busy  bazar  to  the  sea  you  can  discern  a  crowd  of 
red-fezzed  Turkish  soldiers,  armed  to  the  teeth,  mixed 
with  the  ubiquitous  Jewish  merchants  of  the  town,  whosv. 
ancestors  fled  here,  as  others  fled  to  Bosnia  and  Smyrna, 
to  escape  the  fires  and  tortures  of  the  Spanish  Inquisi- 
tion. Conspicuous  in  the  medley  of  head-dresses  on  the 
quay  is  the  green  arrangement,  in  which  the  Jewesses 
fasten  their  hair,  like  a  pig-tail,  while  the  mob  of 
boatmen,  now  swarming  up  the  vessel's  side,  is  as 
picturesque  as  any  you  will  find  between  Corfu  and 
Constantinople.  Salonica,  seen  from  the  sea,  looks 
indeed    a    perfect   city,   and    you    feel    inclined    at    this 

365 


Travels   and   Politics 

distance  to  believe  that  here  at  least  is  an  exception  to 
that  general  rule  of  dilapidation  and  decay  which  follows 
the  Turkish   flag  all  over   the   East  of  Europe. 

But  land  on  the  quay  and  take  a  walk  through  Salonica 
the  picturesque,  and  you  reconsider  your  verdict.  PVom 
the  seething  Custom  House,  fit  model  of  official  stu- 
pidity and  ignorance,  squalid,  dingy  streets  lead  up  to 
the  main  thoroughfare  of  the  town.  Dead  rats  and  offal 
of  every  kind  are  left  to  rot  in  the  blazing  sun,  and  one 
learns  to  thank  those  good  scavengers,  the  pariah  dogs 
and  the  audacious  crows,  for  their  labours  in  their  own 
and  the  public  interest.  Stench  succeeds  stench  in  the 
narrow  lanes  which  intersect  the  upper  town.  At  every 
turn  the  huge  holes  in  the  roadway  threaten  discomfiture 
to  the  unwary  traveller,  while  streams  of  what  for  polite- 
ness may  be  called  water  ooze  down  the  centre  of  these 
rocky  beds.  Now  and  again  a  stray  dustcart  may  be 
seen,  but  the  city  is  too  large  for  such  spasmodic  efforts 
to  prevail  over  the  daily  accumulations  of  "  matter  in  the 
wrong  place,"  and  the  one  exception  to  the  general 
squalor  of  the  town  is  where  the  guiding  hand  of  an 
Englishman,  Mr.  Blunt,  the  British  Consul-General,  has 
called  order  out  of  chaos,  and  paved  and  drained  the 
merchants'  quarter.  Of  the  quaint,  nameless  alleys 
which  serve  as  feeders  to  the  main  street  there  is  no  end. 
The  very  cabmen  do  not  know  how  to  find  them,  and 
perhaps  it  is  just  as  well,  for  a  drive  up  one  of  these 
quarry-like  lanes  would  be  more  excruciating  than  the 
rack  to  the  unfortunate  victim.  Picturesque  these  things 
may  be,  but  one  wonders  no  longer  that  Salonica  is  the 
chosen  home  of  fever,  and  that  the  visitor  who  traverses 
these  streets  in  the  night  air  does  so  at  his  peril.  Under 
an  energetic  European  Government  the  town  would 
become  what  Sarajevo,  in  spite  of  much  greater  obstacles, 
has  been   made  under  the  enlightened  rule  of  Austria- 

366 


in   the   Near   East 

Hungary.  But  the  Turk  goes  on  as  his  forbears  did,  and 
the  one  modern  improvement  which  he  has  patronised  is 
the  Belgian  Company's  tramway,  which  traverses  the 
main  street,  the  Egnatian  Way  of  the  Romans,  and 
passes  beneath  the  fine  old  arch  of  the  Emperor  Galerius 
with  a  rapid  disdain  which  seems  to  say  to  both  Roman 
and  Turkish  rulers  of  Salonica  that  the  modern  West  is 
their  superior.  Yet  you  have  your  reward  for  a  scramble 
among  the  slums  of  this  truly  Oriental  town.  The 
Byzantine  remains  of  Salonica  are  scarcely  equalled  by 
those  of  any  other  city  of  the  East.  Even  the  great  fire, 
which  laid  a  large  part  of  Salonica  in  ashes  in  1891,  has 
spared,  as  if  in  reverence,  the  Mosque  of  St.  George, 
that  strange  round  building  which  Trajan  built  after  the 
model  of  the  Pantheon,  and  which  witnessed  the  baptism 
of  the  Emperor  Theodosius.  It  has  spared,  too,  the 
famous  marble  pulpit  from  which  St.  Paul  is  said  to  have 
preached  to  the  Thessalonians,  and  the  great  mosque  of 
St.  Demetrius,  with  its  "sweating  "  columns  and  its  tomb 
of  the  saint.  Thither  once  a  year  the  Greeks  repair, 
without  let  or  hindrance  from  their  Turkish  masters,  to 
do  honour  to  the  holy  father,  and  he  who  eats  the  mould 
around  his  tomb  is  said  to  go  away  cured  of  whatever 
disease  he  may  have  contracted.  Scattered  about  all 
over  the  city  you  may  find  memorials  of  Salonica's 
Byzantine  greatness,  in  the  shape  of  sculptured  and 
lettered  stones,  once  forming  part  of  some  ancient  arch 
or  church,  but  now  devoted  to  the  meanest  uses.  Even 
the  noble  arch  of  Galerius  is  spoiled  by  the  wretched 
booths  which  have  clustered  around  it,  and  in  one  place 
a  sacrilegious  Turk  has  driven  two  wooden  poles  to 
support  the  canvas  roof  of  his  shop  right  into  the  marble 
bas-reliefs  of  a  Roman  triumph.  But  it  must  be  admitted 
that  the  conversion  of  the  churches  into  mosques  has  at 
least   saved   them    from    that    destruction    which    would 

367 


"THE   FIXE   OLD  ARCH   OF   THE   EMPEROR   GALERICS. 


Travels  and  Politics  in  the  Near  East 

otherwise  have  been  their  lot.  Here,  if  in  Httle  else,  the 
Turks  have  shown  themselves  more  enlightened  than 
some  of  the  Western  barbarians,  whose  acts  of  vandalism 
have  wrought  such  havoc  at  Rome  and  elsewhere. 

Salonica  is  at  the  present  time  in  a  period  of  expectancy. 
All  persons  who  have  any  knowledge  of  the  Eastern 
question  admit  that,  in  spite  of  the  recent  success  of  the 
Turkish  arms  over  a  weak  and  ill-prepared  antagonist, 
the  rule  of  the  Ottoman  in  Macedonia  is  drawing  to  a 
close.  If  only  the  various  competitors  for  the  "  Sick 
Man's  "  Macedonian  estate  could  make  up  their  minds, 
his  rule  would  be  numbered  by  months  rather  than  years. 
But  they  cannot  agree  between  themselves,  and  mean- 
while the  Turk  remains  in  possession  by  the  time- 
honoured  expedient  of  playing  one  off  against  the  other. 

The  Macedonian  question  is  perhaps  the  most  dangerous 
problem  which  the  statesmen  of  Europe  will  have  to  face 
in  the  near  future.  One  of  the  ablest  and  most  experi- 
enced of  British  diplomatists  in  the  Balkan  Peninsula 
said  to  me  a  year  and  a  half  ago,  *'  Old  Servia,  Macedonia, 
and  Albania  will  before  long  become  a  regular  cock- 
pit between  Bulgarians,  Servians,  Montenegrins,  and 
Greeks."  That  he  was  right,  no  one  at  all  acquainted 
with  the  facts  will  for  a  moment  doubt.  Some  persons 
foretold  the  great  Macedonian  rising  for  the  early  summer 
of  last  year,  others  believed  that  last  spring  would 
witness  the  beginning  of  the  struggle  ;  but  all  are  agreed 
that  in  Macedonia  there  exist  the  germs  of  a  conflict, 
which  may  not  only  herald  the  dismemberment  of  the 
Turkish  Empire  in  Europe,  but  may  lead  to  a  fratricidal 
contest  between  the  Christian  States  of  the  Balkans,  or 
even  to  that  much-dreaded  European  war,  which  it  has 
been  the  object  of  diplomacy  to  postpone,  if  it  cannot 
prevent. 

The  Eastern  question  has  always  been  difficult,  but  its 

369  2B 


Travels  and   Politics 

difficulties  were  immensely  increased  when  politicians 
discovered  what  ethnologists  had  long  ago  learned,  that 
the  subjects  of  the  Sultan  could  not  be  divided  into 
the  easy  but  inaccurate  division  of  Greeks  and  Turks. 
Religion,  not  race,  was  regarded,  until  a  comparatively 
short  time  ago,  as  the  vital  distinction  between  the 
various  inhabitants  of  Turkey.  As  all  Mussulmans  of 
whatever  race  have  the  same  faith,  and  that  faith  is  the 
religion  of  the  governing  Turk,  they  were  comprehensively 
described  as  Turks,  just  as  the  Bosnian  Mussulmans  are 
popularly  styled  even  now.  As,  until  the  creation  of  the 
Bulgarian  Exarchate  by  the  tirman  of  March  lo,  1870,  the 
Greek  Patriarch  was  the  spiritual  lord  of  the  Balkan 
Peninsula,  the  Christians  were  massed  together  under  the 
compendious  title  of  Greeks.  I  have  met  Bulgarians  at 
the  present  day,  whose  parents  were  brought  up  to  learn 
Greek  as  their  mother-tongue.  One  reason  why  there  is 
so  little  sympathy  with  the  Greek  cause  among  the  other 
Balkan  peoples  is  the  memory  of  the  tyranny  in  matters 
spiritual  of  the  Phanariot  clergy,  a  tyranny  scarcely  less 
hateful  than  that  of  the  Turks  in  matters  temporal. 

Since  the  creation  of  the  Bulgarian  Exarchate,  the 
erection  of  the  two  independent  kingdoms  of  Roumania 
and  Servia,  and  the  formation  of  an  autonomous  Princi- 
pality of  Bulgaria,  there  is  no  longer  any  possibility  of  a 
simple  division  of  European  Turkey  among  Christians 
and  Mussulmans.  The  doctrine  of  nationalities  has  pla5^ed 
a  great  part  in  the  history  of  our  time,  and  nowhere  more 
than  in  the  Balkan  Peninsula.  We  all  know  now  the 
leading  characteristics  of  the  Bulgarian,  the  Serb,  the 
Roumanian,  and  the  Albanian  races,  whose  very  existence 
was  barely  suspected,  or  at  any  rate  forgotten,  by  the 
politicians  of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries. 
But  in  no  part  of  the  Balkan  Peninsula  are  these  races 
so  mixed  and  jumbled  together  as  in  Macedonia.     Rou- 

370 


in  the  Near  East 

mania  is  mainly  peopled  by  Roumanians,  except  in  the 
Dobriidza  ;  Bulgaria  contains  a  vast  preponderance 
of  Bulgarians  over  all  other  nationalities  ;  Servia  may 
comprise  one  or  two  Bulgarian-speaking  districts,  but 
she  is  overwhelmingly  Servian  ;  Montenegro  has  far  more 
Montenegrins  than  Albanians  within  her  extended 
borders ;  while  Greece,  except  in  Thessaly,  possesses 
comparatively  few  but  Greek  subjects.  But  in  Macedonia 
all  these  races  are  hopelesssly  intermixed.  Unfortunately, 
too,  almost  every  race  of  the  Peninsula  has  at  some 
distant  period  held  more  or  less  brief  sway  over  some 
part  or  other  of  Macedonia,  and  these  historical  remini- 
scences, which  may  seem  of  purely  antiquarian  import- 
ance to  the  "  practical "  statesmen  of  Western  Europe, 
for  whom  history  begins  with  the  Berlin  Treaty,  are 
considered  vital  in  the  Balkans.  To  the  imaginative  Serb 
the  conquests  of  the  great  Servian  Tsar  Dusan  seem  very 
real,  and  that  monarch's  personality  just  as  vivid  as  if  he 
had  been  a  nineteenth,  instead  of  a  fourteenth,  century 
hero.  The  Bulgarians  are  less  impressionable  than  the 
Serbs,  but  they,  too,  have  their  legend  ;  and  it  is  not  too 
much  to  say  that  the  remote  exploits  of  the  old  Bulgarian 
Tsars,  Simeon,  Samuel,  and  John  Asen  II.,  suggest  to  the 
Bulgarians  of  to-day  a  great  future  for  their  country. 
Were  these  various  enthusiasms  capable  of  being  gratified 
at  the  expense  of  the  Turk  alone,  the  Macedonian  problem 
would  be  infinitely  simpler  ;  for  it  has  long  been  a  maxim 
of  European  diplomacy  that,  whenever  there  is  a  struggle 
in  the  Balkan  Peninsula,  the  Sultan  has  to  pay  the  piper  : 
sometimes,  as  in  Bosnia  and  the  Hercegovina,  by  the 
"  consolidation  "  of  his  Empire  ;  sometimes,  as  in  the 
case  of  Bulgaria,  under  the  convenient  euphemism  of 
"  autonomy "  ;  sometimes,  as  in  Roumania  and  Servia, 
by  the  absolute  and  final  cession  of  all  his  rights.  But  in 
Macedonia  this  cheap  and  easy  solution  avails  nothing. 


Travels  and  Politics 

For,  as  ill-luck  will  have  it,  the  rival  claims  of  the  various 
competitors  overlap  each  other.  To  Bulgarian,  Serb,  and 
Greek  alike,  Macedonia  is  ''  the  promised  land,"  and  the 
aspirations  of  the  one  can  only  be  satisfied  by  ignoring 
those  of  the  others.  No  one  who  knows  the  past  history 
and  present  politics  of  the  Balkan  Peninsula  can  hope 
for  any  mutual  arrangement,  any  policy  of  concessions, 
between  these  candidates.  Geography,  too,  is  against 
such  an  arrangement,  for  the  peculiar  formation  of 
Macedonia,  composed  as  it  is  of  mountains,  lakes,  and 
disconnected  plains,  and  the  extraordinary  intermixture 
of  races  in  many  parts  of  it,  render  lines  of  demarcation 
between  the  future  frontiers  of  Greater  Greece,  Greater 
Servia,  and  Greater  Bulgaria,  hard  to  draw.  Besides, 
these  three  races  do  not  exhaust  the  full  list  of  Mace- 
donian claimants.  Of  late  years  a  new  propaganda, 
that  of  the  Koutzo-Wallachs,  or  Macedonian  Rou- 
manians, has  made  its  appearance ;  while  still  more 
recently  the  Albanians,  deficient  hitherto  in  the  sense  of 
nationality  and  content  to  remain  subjects  of  a  Power 
which  did  not  interfere  with  their  "  legitimate  occupa- 
tion "  of  cutting  each  others'  and  their  neighbours' 
throats,  have  begun  to  form  a  separate  organisation. 
And  above  all  these  five  parties  there  rises  the  Austrian 
eagle,  ready  later  on  to  pounce  down  upon  Salonica, 
whenever  a  suitable  opportunity  offers.  We  may  briefly 
state  the  claims  and  prospects  of  these  various  claimants 
for  the  reversion  of  Macedonia. 

Of  the  Christian  races  of  the  Balkans,  the  Bulgarians 
at  present  hold  the  strongest  position  in  this  debatable 
land.  Historically,  there  is  little  doubt,  despite  the 
endeavours  of  Greek  and  Servian  writers  to  minimise 
their  claims,  that  at  various  times  in  the  days  of  the  old 
Bulgarian  Tsars  Macedonia  was  almost  entirely  under 
their  sway.     The  Tsar  Simeon,  who  reigned  from  893  to 

372 


in  the   Near  East 

927,  captured  from  the  Greeks  all  Macedonia  except  the 
sea-coast,  which  still  remains  the  stronghold  of  the  sea- 
faring Hellenes  in  that  country.     Simeon  styled  himself, 
by  virtue  of  his  conquests,  "  Tsar  of  the  Bulgarians  and 
Autocrat  of  the  Greeks,"  and  his  magificence  filled  his 
contemporaries  with  wonder.     When,  after  his  time,  the 
Bulgarian   realm   was  divided    into    a   Western    and   an 
Eastern  State,   Siisman   I.  of  Trnovo   founded  the  West 
Bulgarian  Empire  about  963  in  Macedonia  and  Albania  ; 
a  little  later  the   famous   Bulgarian  Tsar,  Samuel,  whose 
reign  extended  from  976  to   10 14,  made  Macedonia  the 
centre  of  his  empire,  and  fixed  his  residence  first  on  a 
rocky  island   in  the  upper  lake  of  Prespa,  and  then  at 
Ochrida.     To  this  day  the  name  of  Gnul,   or    "the  fort," 
which  the  island  still  bears,  testifies  to  his  occupation  of 
the  spot.     It  was  to  Prespa,  too,  that  Samuel,    returning 
from  the  sack  of  Larissa,  transferred  the  remains  of  the 
holy  Achilles,  and  the  remains  of  a  monastery  dedicated 
to  this  saint  are  still  to  be  found  on  an  island  of  the  lower 
lake.     Now,  for  the  first  time,  we   read  of  a  Bulgarian 
Patriarch  of  Ochrida,  a  see  which  played  a  considerable 
part   at   one   time    or   another    in    Macedonian    history. 
Even  when  the  Byzantine   Emperor  Basil,  ''  the  Bulgar- 
slayer,"    conquered   and    overthrew   the   first    Bulgarian 
Empire    in  1018,   he  allowed  this    Bulgarian  church  at 
Ochrida  to  exist,  though  he  substituted  an  archbishop  for 
a    Patriarch.     And    we  learn  from  the  golden  bulls,  in 
which  this  Emperor  confirmed  the  privileges  of  the  Bul- 
garian church,  that  under  Samuel,  that  is  to  say,  in  the 
first  two  decades  of  the  eleventh   century,  the  Bulgarian 
realm  had  included  practically  all   Macedonia.     Pristina, 
Uskub,  Veles,   Prilep,   Kastoria,  and  even  Joannina,  the 
capital  of  Albania,  had  all  owned  the  sway  of  the  mighty 
Bulgarian  Tsar.     With  the  formation  of  the  second  Bul- 
garian Empire  in    1186,  the  rule  of  the  Tsars  once  more 

373 


Travels  and   Politics 

made  itself  felt  in  Macedonia.  As  early  as  1197  a  Bul- 
garian noble  declared  himself  independent  in  the  passes 
of  the  Vardar,  and  governed  Upper  Macedonia  in  his 
own  name.  We  find  the  Tsar  Kalojan  lord  of  Uskub  in 
1210  ;  and  under  John  Asen  II.  the  golden  age  of  Samuel 
returned,  and  the  Bulgarian  Empire  included  all  Mace- 
donia, except  Salonica.  Thus,  for  a  long  period  in  the 
first  half  of  the  thirteenth  century,  Bulgaria  was  a  great 
Balkan  iPower,  but  after  John  Asen's  death  Macedonia 
was  soon  lost.  Constantine  Asen,  who  ruled  from  1258 
to  1277,  was  the  last  Bulgarian  Tsar  who  occupied  Upper 
Macedonia,  and  then  only  for  a  short  time.  With  the 
thirteenth  century  Bulgarian  domination  over  "the  pro- 
mised land "  ends,  excepting  that  the  Bulgarian  Arch- 
bishopric of  Ochrida  continued  to  exist  under  Greek 
influence  down  to  its  suppression  in  1767.  But  for 
three  centuries  it  had  been  nothing  but  a  mere  title, 
and  Bulgarian  only  in  name. 

The  present  Bulgarian  propaganda  in  Macedonia  dates 
from  the  foundation  of  the  Bulgarian  Exarchate  in  1870, 
which  the  Bulgarians  had  demanded  ever  since  1857. 
Slaveikoff,  by  his  journal,  published  at  Constantinople  in 
the  sixties,  had  endeavoured  to  prepare  the  way  for  the 
national  movement  in  Macedonia  ;  but  so  little  was  the 
Bulgarian  alphabet  then  known,  even  among  the  Bul- 
garian Macedonians,  that  the  editor  was  forced  to  print 
his  patriotic  articles  in  Greek  characters,  just  as,  earlier 
on,  when  the  Roumanians  protested  against  the  tyranny 
of  the  Greeks,  they  drew  up  their  protest  in  the  Greek 
language.  But  with  the  creation  of  the  Exarchate 
the  Bulgars  of  Macedonia  gained  a  rallying-point, 
while  in  Russia,  and  above  all  in  General  Ignatieff, 
they  found  a  powerful  support.  Had  the  Treaty  of 
San  Stefano  been  maintained,  all  the  principal  places 
in     Macedonia,    except    Salonica,    would    have    formed 

374 


in  the  Near  East 

integral  parts  of  a  "  big  Bulgaria,"  such  as  had 
not  existed  since  the  days  of  John  Asen  II.;  and  the 
Principality,  with  a  frontage  on  the  JEge3.n,  would  not 
only  have  cut  the  dominions  of  European  Turkey  in  two 
but  would  have  barred  the  road  which  the  Greeks  hope 
will  one  day  lead  them  from  Athens  7'id  Salonica  to  Con- 
stantinople. But  the  "  big  Bulgaria  "  of  San  Stefano  was 
cut  down  to  very  narrow  limits  at  Berlin,  and  Macedonia 
still  remains  ''the  promised  land."  Prince  Alexander 
told  a  friend  of  mine  in  1882,  that  he  "often  turned  his 
eyes  "  thither,  and  Prince  Ferdinand  at  one  time  aspired 
to  go  down  to  history  as  "  the  Macedonian."  Russia, 
however,  no  longer  favours  the  Macedonian  aspirations 
of  the  Bulgarians,  for  she  has  learned  by  bitter  experience 
since  San  Stefano  that  her  former  proteges  have  no  wish  to 
be  under  a  Russian  Protectorate.  Indeed,  during  the 
quarrel  between  Bulgaria  and  Servia  over  IVIacedonian 
affairs  at  the  close  of  last  year,  Russian  influence  was 
rather  on  the  side  of  Servia.  But  during  the  vigorous 
administration  of  Stambuloff,  the  Bulgarian  propaganda 
made  further  progress.  Bcvais  were  granted  in  1890  for 
two  Bulgarian  Bishops  at  Ochrida  and  Uskub  respectively, 
and  four  years  later  two  more  were  issued,  the  Bulgarian 
schools  in  Macedonia  were  permitted  the  same  rights  as 
the  Greeks,  and  forty  Bulgarian  communes  were  formally 
recognised.  It  has  now  become  the  policy  of  Bulgaria 
to  present  a  pistol  at  the  head  of  her  suzerain  whenever 
he  is  in  difficulties,  and  demand  as  the  price  of  her 
neutrality  more  bishops  and  schools  in  Macedonia.  This 
was  the  policy  pursued  by  Prince  Ferdinand  at  the 
beginning  of  the  late  Greco-Turkish  war,  though  in  this 
case  it  has  resulted  in  little  but  the  promise  of  the 
appointment  of  eight  Bulgarian  commercial  agents. 
Bulgaria  is,  however,  gaining  ground  in  Macedonia  in 
other  ways,  and  the  extension  of  the  Bulgarian  line  to 

375 


Travels   and   Politics 

Kumanova  will  bring  the  Principality  in  direct  communi- 
cation with  Salonica.  Even  in  that  sea-port,  perhaps 
the  least  Bulgarian  of  Macedonian  cities,  there  are  five 
thousand  Bulgarians,  while  most  of  the  villagers  outside, 
who  till  the  tchijiiks  of  the  Turkish  proprietors,  belong 
to  the  same  plodding  race.  Up  country  it  is  the 
same  story  of  Bulgarian  progress.  A  gentleman  who 
has  had  long  experience  in  Macedonia  tells  me  that 
"  the  Bulgarians  were  never  so  strong  as  at  pre- 
sent, nor  so  well  organised  for  the  struggle.  Their 
schools,  once  few  and  poor  every  way,  have  greatly 
improved  as  well  as  increased."  And  he  sums  up  their 
prospects  by  saying  that  "in  the  end  they  will  win  nearly 
all  the  Bulgarian-speaking  people  of  Macedonia  ;  that  is 
to  say,  a  large  majority  of  the  non-Moslem  population, 
especially  of  the  agriculturists."  For  in  agriculture  the 
Bulgarian  is  without  a  rival  among  the  races  of  the  Balkan 
Peninsula.  Another  high  authority  is  of  opinion,  that, 
while  Bulgaria  will  not  do  anything  in  Macedonia,  unless 
Russia  urges  the  Prince  on,  "  that  country  will  ultimately 
fall  to  the  Bulgarians  there."  A  Bulgarian  diplomatist 
himself  admitted  to  me  that  *' it  would  be  a  Utopian  idea 
to  demand  the  annexation  of  Macedonia."  In  fact,  since 
the  Greco-Turkish  conflict,  the  Turkish  Minister  of  War 
has  told  a  friend  of  mine  that  a  small  army  would  suffice 
to  keep  the  Bulgarians  quiet  ;  this  view  seems  to  be 
shared  by  the  Bulgarian  Government,  which  is  now 
content  to  demand  "  reforms "  for  Macedonia  and  the 
execution  of  article  23  of  the  Berlin  Treaty  by  the  Sultan, 
apparently  under  the  auspices  of  a  commission  of  the 
Great  Powers.  But  the  "  Concert  of  Europe  "  will 
certainly  prov'e  quite  as  dilatory  in  Macedonia  as  in 
Crete  ;  while  the  guns  of  the  Admirals  cannot  penetrate  to 
Uskub.  Such  representative  Bulgarians  as  M.  Zankoff, 
the  ex-Premier  ;  M,  Petkoff,  the  editor  of  the  Svoboda,  the 

376 


in  the  Near  East 

chief  Opposition  paper  at  Sofia;  M.  Karaveloff,  the  Demo- 
cratic leader ;  M.  Vasoff,  the  Minister  of  Public  Instruction, 
and  M.  Radoslavoff,  the  Liberal  chief,  have  all  expressed 
themselves  in  favour  of  a  pacific  policy  in  Macedonia, 
where,  in  the  words  of  M.  Vasoff,  "  the  development  of 
national  education   is  progressing  favourably." 

But  the  rise  of  the  Servian  propaganda  has  undoubtedly 
somewhat  hampered  the  advancing  Bulgars.  Servia  has 
onl}'  comparatively  recently  revived  her  ancient  claims  to 
Macedonia,  and,  until  the  occupation  of  Bosnia  and  the 
Hercegovina  by  Austria-Hungary,  turned  her  eyes  to 
those  provinces  rather  than  to  the  land  in  which  her  Tsar 
Dusan  had  once  fixed  his  capital.  Servia  is  the  only 
European  country,  except  Switzerland,  which  is  absolutely 
landlocked,  and  it  is  her  natural  desire  to  obtain  a  port  at 
which  she  can  ship  her  pigs.  Prior  to  1878,  she  dreamt 
of  an  outlet  on  the  Adriatic,  at  Ragusa  or  Cattaro,  but  the 
success  of  the  Austrian  rule  in  Bosnia  and  the  Herce- 
govina has  caused  her  to  despair  of  Dalmatia,  and  aspire 
to  the  reversion  of  Salonica,  with  which  she  is  now 
connected  by  a  direct  line  of  railway  from  Nis.  Accord- 
ingly, the  Servian  Government,  which  in  former  days 
favoured  the  Bulgarian  movement  in  Macedonia,  and 
actually  allowed  the  first  books  of  that  propaganda  to 
be  printed  at  Belgrade,  has  now  become  its  rival. 
Austria  is  by  no  means  sorry  to  find  Servian  energies 
turned  in  another  direction,  and  is  well  content  that 
Serbs  and  Bulgars  should  neutralise  each  others'  eft'orts. 
Those  who  lament,  as  I  do,  the  mutual  jealousies  of  these 
two  Slav  states  of  the  Peninsula,  must  regret  that  they 
cannot  pull  together  in  Macedonia.  But  no  one  at  all 
acquainted  with  Bulgarian  and  Servian  history  and 
politics  can  hope  for  any  such  unanimity  of  purpose. 
M.  Grekoff,  the  ablest  of  living  Bulgarian  statesmen, 
endeavoured  in  1885  to  arrange  a  iiiodiis  vi7'cndi  between 

377 


Travels  and  Politics 

these  two  competitors  for  Macedonia,  and  the  answer 
was  the  fratricidal  war  which  cuhiiinated  in  the  battle  of 
Slivnica.  The  Servian  Consul  at  Salonica  actually  assured 
me  that  he  could  see  in  his  mind's  eye  the  future  line  of 
demarcation  between  the  spheres  of  Servian  and  Bulgarian 
influence  in  Macedonia,  which  he  placed  at  the  river 
Vardar.  But  all  these  efforts  to  bring  about  an  agree- 
ment have  so  far  failed.  So  we  have  the  hard  fact  of  a 
vigorous  Servian  movement  in  Macedonia,  which  is 
largely  directed  against  the  Bulgarians.  We  are  re- 
minded very  truly  by  Servian  writers  that  their  nationality 
has,  no  less  than  the  Bulgars,  its  historical  claims  to  this 
Naboth's  vineyard.  They  tell  us  how  Milutin  Uros  II. 
conquered  Macedonia  as  far  as  Seres  in  1279,  how 
Stephen  Uros  III.  made  further  conquests  in  the  same 
region,  and  how  the  great  Servian  Tsar,  Stephen  Dusan, 
besieged  Salonica,  made  Uskub  his  capital,  and  included 
all  Macedonia  in  his  vast  dominions.  It  is  a  historical 
fact,  that  Dusan  called  himself  in  1346,  "  Tsar  of  Mace- 
donia, and  Monarch  of  the  Serbs,  Greeks,  Bulgarians, 
the  coast,  and  the  western  parts."  The  centre  of 
gravity  of  this  brief-lived  empire  lay  outside  the 
boundaries  of  the  modern  Servian  kingdom,  and 
it  is  only  natural,  therefore,  that  the  chauvinist  politi- 
cians of  Belgrade,  whose  ideal  is  the  resurrection  of 
a  "Great  Servia,"  as  it  existed  in  the  time  of  Dusan, 
should  cast  longing  eyes  on  the  Macedonian  inheritance. 
It  is  true  that  the  Servian  sway  in  Macedonia  was  short- 
lived. As  soon  as  the  strong  personality  of  Dusan  was 
removed  by  the  hand  of  death,  the  new  provinces  of  his 
empire  fell  away,  and  the  victory  of  the  Turks  on  the 
Marica  in  1371  finally  ended  the  Servian  supremacy,  and 
placed  Macedonia  under  its  present  masters.  But  historic 
memories  and  commercial  necessities  are  equally  potent 
causes  of    the    revived    Servian    interest    in    Macedonia. 

378 


in  the  Near  East 

Having  come  late  into  the  field,  Servia  is  making  up  for 
lost  time  by  the  energy  of  her  agents.  Considerable  sums 
of  money  are  spent  in  the  conversion  of  Bulgarians  to 
the  Servian  nationality,  for  it  is  part  of  the  grim  irony  of 
the  Macedonian  question  that  people  are  as  ready  to 
become  Serbs  or  Bulgars  for  hard  cash  as  they  are  in 
more  civilised  countries  to  vote  Liberal  or  Conservative 
for  a  valuable  consideration.  American  missionaries, 
working  among  the  Bulgarians  of  Macedonia,  have 
noticed  with  surprise  that  all  of  a  sudden  their  familiar 
disciples  have  changed  their  nationality,  and  blossomed 
out  into  full-blown  Serbs.  To  the  north  of  the  Sar 
mountams,  which  before  1878  formed  the  nc  plus  ultra 
of  Servian  hopes,  there  is,  undoubtedly,  a  genuine  Servian 
population,  speaking  Serb  as  its  mother-tongue.  The 
vilaxct  of  Kossovo,  so-called  from  the  "accursed  plain" 
which  was  the  scene  of  the  great  battle  in  1389,  is  largely 
Servian,  and  for  the  last  six  years  there  have  been  far 
more  Servian  than  Bulgarian  schools  there.  According 
to  the  last  published  statistics,  those  for  the  scholastic 
year  1893-4,  kindly  furnished  me  by  the  courteous 
Servian  Consul  when  I  was  lately  at  Salonica,  there 
were  in  that  year  117  Servian  schools  in  the  Kossovo 
vilavet,  part  of  which  is,  however,  outside  Macedonia 
proper,  with  5,147  pupils  of  both  sexes,  and  159  teachers. 
According  to  the  same  table,  there  was  one  Servian  school 
at  Salonica,  with  seventy-five  pupils  and  three  teachers. 
The  Consul  told  me  that  since  then  the  number  of 
Servian  schools  in  the  vilavet  of  Kossovo  had  risen  to 
140.  But  even  beyond  the  Sar  mountains,  where  the 
Serbs  hold  the  field  undisturbed  by  their  Bulgarian 
rivals,  they  are  hampered  at  every  step  by  the  savage 
Albanians.  These  marauders,  whom  the  Sultan  has 
never  succeeded  in  keeping  in  order,  have  made  them- 
selves a  terror  to  the  Serbs.     When,  in   1889,  the  Servian 

379 


Travels  and  Politics 

Government  sent  a  consul  for  the  first  time  to  Pristina, 
the  place  where  the  first  Servian  school  in  Turkey  was 
opened  in  1853,  he  was  murdered  by  the  Albanians 
within  six  months,  because  he  had  refused  to  obey 
their  orders  and  take  his  departure.  Last  year  they 
went  a  step  further,  and  expelled  the  Turkish  governors 
of  both  that  place  and  Prizren.  So  frequent  are  the 
raids  of  the  Albanians  over  the  Servian  frontier,  so 
constant  are  the  outrages  committed  by  them  upon 
Servians  resident  in  Turkey,  that  during  the  three  years 
from  1894  to  1897  no  less  than  204  notes  were  presented 
to  the  Porte  on  this  subject  by  the  Servian  Minister  at 
Constantinople.^  No  wonder  that  the  Serbs  of  North 
Macedonia  are  leaving  for  other  and  more  settled 
re<£ions,  while  the  Albanians  remain  masters  of  the 
situation.  In  the  district  of  Uskub,  where  there  are 
some  Servian-speaking  refugees  and  people  speaking  a 
Bulgarian  dialect  containing  many  Servian  words,  this 
propaganda  may  make  some  conquests.  Thus,  the 
Servian  Government  was  successful  after  a  fierce  diplo- 
matic struggle  with  the  Bulgarian  agent  at  Constantinople, 
in  securing  the  appointment  of  the  Servian  Archbishop 
Fermilianos  to  the  see  of  Uskub  last  autumn  ;  and  an 
ancient  monastery  at  Poboje,  near  that  place,  was  the 
scene  of  a  disgraceful  conflict  between  the  two  nationali- 
ties, whose  representatives  had  to  be  prevented  by  the 
Turkish  troops  from  tearing  one  another  to  pieces.  The 
church  at  Kumanova  has  been  another  bone  of  con- 
tention between  the  two  rivals.  But  elsewhere  in 
Macedonia,  where  the  language  of  the  people  is 
Bulgarian  and  not  Servian,  the  difference  of  tongue, 
though  not  insurmountable,  is  sufficient  to  make  the 
task     difficult.       In    the     vilayet     of     Monastir,     more 

^  Another  strong  noteon  this  subject,  backed  by  both  Russia  and  Austria-Hungary, 
was  presented  bv  the  Servian  Minister  on  October  31st  of  the  present  year. 

380 


in  the  Near  East 

especially,  the  Serbs  have  little  chance  against  theii 
Bulgarian  rivals.  They  have,  indeed,  opened  a  school 
at  Monastir  itself,  and  fifty-two  places  in  that  vilayet 
— so  the  Servian  Consul  at  Salonica  told  me — have 
fulfilled  all  the  conditions  necessary  to  obtain  per- 
mission to  follow  its  example.  He  also  contended 
that  certain  so-called  Greek  schools  at  Monastir  were 
really  Serb,  for  the  instructors  could  not  even  speak 
Greek.  But  here,  as  elsewhere,  the  Servians  have 
come  too  late,  while  many  of  their  agents  are  not 
Servians  by  race,  but  are  Bulgarians,  who  have 
quarrelled  with  their  employers,  and  gone  over  to 
the  other  side  in  order  to  secure  better  pay.  Un- 
happily, these  educational  rivalries  lead  occasionally 
to  violence,  as  when  last  autumn  there  was  an  attempt 
by  Bulgarians  to  kill  the  director  of  the  Servian  school 
at  Prilep  and  his  daughter.  Thus,  in  "  the  promised 
land,"  religion  and  education  are  a  mere  cloak  for  political 
agitation,  and  an  additional  bishop  or  a  new  school  is 
regarded  as  one  more  point  in  the  game  of  rival  races. 

Such  is  the  present  state  of  the  two  Slav  candidatures 
for  the  reversion  of  Macedonia.  United,  Servians  and 
Bulgarians  might,  perhaps,  settle  the  question  without 
great  difficulty  ;  but  they  will  never  unite,  any  more  than 
they  will  join  with  their  rivals  the  Greeks.  History, 
geography,  and  the  tendency  of  near  relatives  to  quarrel, 
even  more  than  the  interests  of  the  Great  Powers,  forbid 
such  a  welcome  consummation  as  that.  1,  for  one,  have 
reluctantly  given  up  as  hopeless  the  idea  of  a  settle- 
ment of  the  Macedonian  question  by  the  Balkan  States 
without  external  interference. 

The  Greeks,  who  in  former  times  seemed  to  be  the 
most  likely,  and  indeed  the  only  possible  heirs  of  the 
"  Sick  Man's  "  Macedonian  estate,  have  been  considerably 
injured    by  recent  events.       My  experience  of  Hellenic 

381 


Travels  and  Politics 

statesmanship  while  I  was  at  Athens  during  the  late  war, 
and  the  wise  resolve  of  the  vanquished  to  devote  them- 
selves to  the  reform  of  their  domestic  administration, 
convince  me,  quite  apart  from  other  considerations,  that 
Greece  will  not  be  a  very  important  factor  in  the  Mace- 
donian question  for  many  years  to  come.^  Historically,  of 
course,  the  Hellenes  can  afford  to  regard  Bulgars  and 
Serbs  alike  as  interlopers  in  the  country  where  Philip  and 
Alexander  of  Macedon  held  sway,  where  later  on  the 
Byzantine  Emperors  ruled,  and  sometimes  governed,  and 
where  even  in  Turkish  days  the  Greek  clergy  shared 
power  with  the  Ottoman  officials.  It  is  difficult  after 
recent  events  to  read  without  a  smile  the  enthusiastic 
lines  which  a  Greek  author,  writing  on  Macedonia, 
addressed  to  the  Crown  Prince  of  Greece  when  the 
latter  attained  his  majority  twelve  years  ago.  "  The 
national  dream,"  wrote  M.  Kallostypis,  "  remains 
only  three-quarters  accomplished.  Unredeemed  Greece, 
and,  above  all,  Macedonia,  looks  with  longing  eyes 
on  your  kingdom.  May  Hellenism  witness  the  accom- 
plishment of  its  dearest  desires  by  you  :  may  the 
grand  idea  find  in  you,  our  future  king,  its  priest 
and  its  apostle."  No  Greek  would  address  the  Crown 
Prince  in  language  such  as  that  to-day  ;  not  even 
the  most  sensational  of  Athenian  papers  would  acclaim 
the  leader  of  the  late  rout  in  Thessaly  as  the  future  con- 
queror of  Macedonia.  Of  course,  now  that  Greece  has 
been  weakened,  the  Sultan,  true  to  his  traditional  policy 
of  playing  one  Christian  race  off  against  the  other,  has 
begun  to  favour  the  Greeks  in  Macedonia  at  the  expense 
of  the  Bulgarians,  just  as  in  1890  and  1894  he  favoured 

'  The  Italian  Tribuiia  of  May  5,  1897,  expressed  this  fact  very  clearly  during  the 
war.  "  Ora,"  it  wrote,  "  chi  trae  profitto  della  vittoria  ?  Gli  Slavi.  La  caduta 
di  Tirnov.)  e  accompagnata  dagli  exequatur  ai  vescovi  bulgari,  e  dalle  concessioni 
di  nuove  scuole  serbe  ;  e  bulgari  e  serbi,  che  senza  nulla  arrischiare  traggono  tutti 
i  frutti  della  vittoria,  appena  celano  sotto  la  maschera  del  vassallagio  la  gioia  della 
conquista,  della  Macedonia  slava." 


in  the  Near  East 


the  Bulgarians  at  the  expense  of  the  Greeks.  But 
even  before  their  recent  defeat,  the  Greeks  had  been 
going  back  in  Macedonia.  The  great  fire  of  1890  at 
Salonica,  in  spite  of  the  generosity  of  Hellenes  in  all  parts 
of  the  world,  greatly  injured  the  Greek  community  there, 
and,  as  we  have  seen,  the  Bulgarians  are  beginning  to 
press  them  hard  in  a  sea-port   which    they    have    never 


p 

^^^^■1 

HJI^^^^H^^^HH^HHp 

iMH|^r 

MH  .  ^  ^H||Mr         ^Hj 

^'i 

mg,  ^\ 

J 

m    '   a^B^B^^Iii^B  ^                                              ^           ^^^K' 

^^^^H^^k'     **iiP^^P^^^*^^^^j^g^B 

A   JEWESS    OF   SA1A)N1CA. 


ceased  to  claim  as  their  own.  Now,  as  always,  the 
Greeks  are  strongest  on  the  sea-coast  ;  but  at  Salonica 
the  Jews  forms  two-tliirds  of  the  population,  whilst  Kavala 
is  coveted  by  Bulgaria,  to  which  the  abortive  Treaty  of 
San  Stefano  assigned  it.  About  the  middle  of  last  year, 
as  I  am  informed  by  a  person  who  is  perhaps  more 
than  any  one  else  in  the  secrets  of  the  Bulgarian  Govern- 

3«3 


Travels  and   Politics 

ment,  the  Triple  Alliance  made  confidential  inquiries  at 
Sofia  as  to  the  willingness  of  Prince  Ferdinand  to  accept 
a  large  slice  of  Thrace,  together  with  Kavala,  and  a 
frontage  on  the  /Egean,  as  a  final  settlement  of  the 
Bulgarian  claim.  No  reply  to  this  proposal  was,  I 
believe,  received,  but  the  fact  that  it  should  have  been 
made  proves  that  Austria  desired  at  that  time  to  have  a 
free  hand  in  Macedonia,  and  was  willing  to  compensate 
Bulgaria  by  allowing  her  a  free  hand  in  Thrace  at  the 
expense  of  the  Turks'  present  estate  and  the  Greeks' 
future  prospects  in  that  region.  Servia,  I  was  told,  was 
not  considered  or  consulted  in  this  arrangement.  But, 
quite  apart  from  Bulgarian  claims  and  Austrian  plans, 
the  dissension  prevalent  among  the  Hellenic  communi- 
ties in  Macedonia  is  in  itself  a  great  obstacle  to  the 
realisation  of  the  ''  great  Greek  idea."  Besides,  "  the 
Greeks,"  in  the  words  of  a  Macedonian  correspondent 
who  belongs  to  none  of  these  rival  races,  "  sufi'er  under 
the  fatal  disadvantage  in  many  parts  of  Macedonia  of 
compelling  people  to  forget  their  mother-tongue  and 
learn  Greek.  The  Greek-speaking  communities  will 
remain  Greek,  and  possibly  increase  in  size,  but  else- 
where the  Greek  party  has  met  with  defeat,  and,  so  far  as 
I  can  see,  will  continue  to  lose  until  only  Greek-speaking 
people  remain." 

The  Hellenic  propaganda  suffers,  too,  from  the 
competition  of  a  new  rival  in  the  shape  of  the 
Koutzo-Wallachs,  or  Roumanians  of  Macedonia.  This 
remarkable  movement,  among  people  long  lost  to  all 
sense  of  nationality,  owes  its  rise  and  growth  to  the 
ambition  of  one  man — Apostolo  Margariti.  According 
to  the  first  of  living  Roumanian  historians,  M.  Xenopol 
of  Jassy,  the  Slav  invasion  of  the  Balkan  Peninsula 
separated  the  Wallachs,  who  had  previously  covered  a 
large  portion  of  it  and  spoke  a  Latin  dialect,  into  three 

384 


in  the  Near  East 

separate  divisions,  which  have  subsisted  down  to  the 
present  day,  in  Roumania  and  the  Roumanian-speaking 
part  of  Hungary,  in  1  stria,  and  in  Macedonia  and  part  of 
Thessaly.  After  the  fall  of  the  second  Bulgarian  Empire, 
for  which  the  Roumanians  claim  a  Wallachian  origin,  the 
Wallachs  of  Macedonia  became  merged  in  the  Greek 
communities.  Their  descendants  were  the  pioneers  of 
the  Greek  war  of  Independence,  and  Athens  owes  not 
a  few  of  its  public  foundations  to  their  benevolence. 
But  the  creation  of  a  Roumanian  nation  beyond  the 
Danube  and  its  emancipation  from  the  tyranny  of  the 
Phanariots  led  to  the  formation  of  a  "  Macedonian 
Committee  "  at  Bucharest.  Then  Apostolo  Margariti 
arrived  on  the  scene,  and  Roumanian  schools  were 
founded  in  Macedonia,  supported  by  contributions 
from  Jassy.  Like  the  clever  diplomatist  that  he  is, 
Margariti  enlisted  the  sympathies  of  the  Turkish 
Government  on  his  side.  He  saw  clearly  enough  that, 
if  Macedonia  were  divided  up  at  once,  the  Roumanian 
movement  would  not  be  strong  enough  to  hold  its  own 
against  the  other  competitors,  but  would  be  swallowed 
up  by  the  Bulgarians  or  the  Greeks.  Besides,  Roumania 
is  a  long  way  from  Macedonia,  and  Bulgaria  and  Servia 
lie  between.  He  saw  that  it  was  his  best  policy  to  play  a 
waiting  game,  believing  that  time  would  be  on  his  side. 
"  Our  first  interest,"  as  he  told  M.  Berard,  the  eminent 
French  traveller,  "  is  the  safety  of  the  Ottoman  Empire." 
The  Porte  quickly  grasped  the  situation,  and  whenever 
the  Greeks  are  in  disgrace  it  supports  the  Wallachs. 
The  Thessalian  boundary  question  in  1881,  the  Cretan 
revolution  of  1887,  and  the  late  war  have  all  been  god- 
sends to  the  Macedonian  Roumanians.  Hence  it  is  that 
the  Wallachs  aided  the  Turks  during  the  operations 
in  Thessaly  with  mules  ;  hence,  too,  the  demand  of 
Wallachian    villages    to    be    included    within    the    new 

385  2C 


Travels  and  Politics 

Ottoman    frontier.        During    the    last    five     years    the 
Roumanians   of    IMacedonia   have    been    agitating   for  a 
separate  Church  under  a  MetropoHtan  of  their  own  on 
the   Bulgarian  model,  and   their  claims  have  been  sup- 
ported   by   the    Bucharest   Government,  which,  as    King 
Carol  has  said,  "  cannot  remain  indifferent  to  their  fate." 
At  the  end  of  August,  1897,  the  Sultan  is  said  to  have  told 
the  Roumanian  Government  that  he  would  "  consent  to 
the  foundation  of  a  Roumanian  Exarchate  in  Macedonia, 
in  spite  of  the  opposition  of  the  CEcumenical  Patriarch," 
and  in  the  previous  winter  they  had  actually  elected  Mgr. 
Anthimos  their    Metropolitan.      Margariti's    son    having 
been  private  secretary  of  the  Grand  Vizier,  their  influence 
could  not  fail  to  be  disproportionate  to  their  numbers, 
especially  as  Austria-Hungary,  for  purposes  of  her  own, 
encourages  their  propaganda.     The  statesmen  of  Vienna 
and    Buda-Pesth    would    naturally    prefer    the    attention 
of     the    Roumanian    Government     to     be    diverted    to 
the    Macedonian    Wallachs,     who    also    form    a    useful 
counterpoise    to  the   other    Macedonian  parties,  instead 
of    being    directed    to    that    "  unredeemed    Roumania," 
which  is  to  be  found  in  Transylvania  and  the  Banat  of 
Temesvar.     The  Roumanian   schools  of   Macedonia  are 
said  to  give  a  more  practical  education  than  the  Greek, 
but  the  greatest  difficulty  with  which  this  movement  has 
to  contend  is  the  scattered  condition  of  the  Roumanian 
population,  which  is  largely  composed  of  shepherds.     A 
fierce    internal    dispute,  which    began  about    five    years 
ago,  has  also  impeded  its  progress,  and  at  present   it  is 
not  very  formidable. 

The  Albanian  propaganda  is  the  most  recent  of  all  the 
Macedonian  agitations.  Except  for  a  moment  under 
their  national  hero,  Skanderbeg,  the  Albanians  can 
scarcely  be  said  to  have  ever  had  a  national  history. 
Until    quite    lately   they  have    hardly  possessed   a    fixed 

386 


in  the  Near  East 

language.  At  the  time  of  the  Dulcigno  demonstration 
of  1880  Europe  was  surprised  by  the  sudden  appearance 
of  an  "  Albanian  League,"  which  declined  to  allow 
Albania  to  be  dismembered  for  the  benefit  of  Monte- 
negro. Since  then  sporadic  efforts  have  been  made  to 
awaken  a  national  spirit  by  the  publication  of  pamphlets 
and  small  books  ;  but  the  Turkish  authorities  have 
opposed  the  movement  so  strongly  that  it  has  been  con- 
ducted perforce  from  outside  Turkey  by  committees  in 
Italy,  in  Egypt,  and  at  Bucharest.  These  committees 
raise  funds  and  publish  a  weekly  and  a  monthly  Albanian 
periodical.  Both  Christian  and  Moslem  Albanians  take 
part  in  this  agitation,  some  of  the  latter  in  spite  of  their 
otttcial  posts  under  Government  ;  but  at  present  there 
are  only  three  schools  in  which  Albanian  is  taught. 
Rather  than  fall  hito  the  hands  of  their  Slav  neighbours, 
most  Albanians  would  prefer  the  creation  of  an  Albanian 
principality.  Thus  the  Albanian  political  committee, 
presided  over  by  the  well-known  Neapolitan,  Castriota 
Skanderbeg,  who  traces  his  descent  from  the  famous  hero, 
memorialised  the  late  Italian  foreign  secretary  on  this 
suloject.  Others,  too,  since  the  Austrian  occupation  of 
Bosnia  and  the  Hercegf)vina,  have  come  to  the  con- 
clusion that  they  would  be  much  better  off  under 
Austrian  than  under  Turkish  rule.  Many  of  them  work 
at  Mostar  in  the  summer,  and  have  had  practical  expe- 
rience of  the  material  blessings  which  Austria  bestows. 
They  see  that  the  Bosniak  soldiers  get  regular  pay  and 
good  clothes,  while  the  Sultan's  regiments  are  often  in 
rags,  and  the  Sultan's  pay  ahvays  in  arrears.  Those  of 
them  who  are  Moslems  know  what  toleration  the  Bosniak 
Mussulmans  enjoy,  while  the  Catholic  Albanians  regard 
Catholic  Austria  as  their  natural  protector.  The  argu- 
ments, verbal  and  pecuniary,  of  Austrian  agents  strengthen 
this  view. 

387 


Travels  and  Politics 

Another  solution  of  the  Macedonian  problem  has  lately 
been  proposed.  Europe  has,  it  is  said,  conceded  Bulgaria 
to  the  Bulgarians,  and  Servia  to  the  Servians ;  why  should 
she  not  give  Macedonia  to  the  Macedonians,  either  as  an 
autonomous  province  of  Turkey,  or  as  an  independent 
Balkan  State  ?  This  solution,  although  it  received  the 
high  approval  of  Mr.  Gladstone,  whose  services  will 
never  be  forgotten  by  the  Balkan  peoples,  seems,  in  my 
humble  judgment,  impossible.  There  is  no  parallel 
between  the  case  of  Macedonia  and  the  cases  of  Servia 
and  Bulgaria.  There  is  no  Macedonian  nationality  ;  the 
whole  point  of  the  difficulty  in  that  country  is  that  it  is  a 
medley  of  conflicting  nationalities,  which  have  nothing 
in  common,  except,  perhaps,  their  discontent  with  the 
existing  rcgiiuc.  Nor,  on  the  other  hand,  is  any  one  of 
the  Macedonian  races  powerful  enough  to  subdue  all 
the  others,  while  a  federation  would  be  impracticable. 
Possibly,  under  pressure  from  the  Powers,  Turkey  may 
go  through  the  time-honoured  farce  of  providing  Mace- 
donia with  paper  reforms,  which  will  then  be  allowed  to 
remain  a  dead  letter.  To  me,  at  any  rate,  the  ultimate, 
I  do  not  say  immediate,  and  from  the  material  stand- 
point the  best,  solution  is  that  Austria-Himgary  should 
"  run  down  to  Salonica  "  and  occupy  Macedonia  as  she 
has  already  occupied  Bosnia  and  the  Hercegovina,  to 
the  general  advantage  of  mankind.  But  that  event  is 
not  likely  to  happen  just  yet.  Austrian  military  opinion 
is  against  the  selection  of  the  river  Vardar  as  a  military 
frontier,  while  the  present  policy  of  Count  Goluchowski  is 
"  the  maintenance  of  the  stains  quo  in  the  Balkans."  But 
only  a  neutral  and  a  strong  Power  can  control  a  composite 
medley  of  rival  races  and  creeds,  such  as  inhabit  Macedonia. 
Besides,  the  development  and  security  of  Macedonia  is  a 
European,  as  well  as  a  Balkan,  question.  I  am  told,  by  a 
person  who  has  seen  the  plans,  that  Austrian  engineers 

388 


in   the   Near  East 

have  surveyed  the  Hue  from  Sarajevo  to  Mitrovica,  which 
is  alone  lacking  to  complete  the  chain  from  Western 
Europe  by  way  of  Bosnia  and  the  Sandzak  of  Novi-Bazar 
to  Salonica  and  the  ^-Egean.  If  ever  that  line  be  com- 
pleted, the  Austrians  will  be  masters  of  the  situation,  and 
as  the  Servian  Consul  at  Salonica  said  to  me,  "  it  will  be 
all  over  with  the  Servian  claims."  Strongly  entrenched 
in  Bosnia  and  the  Hercegovina,  and  garrisoning  the  three 
points  of  the  Sandzak  of  Novi-Bazar,  Austria  is  in  a  coign 
of  vantage,  and  can  pounce  at  a  suitable  opportunity. 
One  obstacle  stands  in  her  path,  the  opposition  of 
Russia,  but  if  that  be  ever  withdrawn,  Macedonia  is 
assured  to  the  Power  that  has  made  Bosnia  and 
the  Hercegovina  a  Balkan-Mitstcvstaai ;  Salonica  will 
become  the  greatest  port  in  the  Near  East,  and  the 
quickest  route  to  India  will  be  through  the  valley  of 
the  Vardar.  Macedonia  will  then  become  what  Bosnia 
now^  is,  and  the  thorniest  of  thorny  questions  will  be 
solved  by  Bismarck's  old  prescription,  that  of  converting 
Austria  into  a  real  Ocsterrcich,  or  Eastern  Empire. 


389 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE  CYNOSURE  OF  THE  XEAK  EAST  :  STAMRUL. 

EVERY  ti'aveller  who  has  ever  set  foot  in  the  citv  of 
'  Constantine  has  at  once  drawn  a  contrast  between 
the  superb  situation  and  magnificent  appearance  of  the 
"New  Rome"  from  the  sea  and  the  filth  and  squalor  of 
its  narrow  streets  and  toi'tuous  alleys.  But  an  even 
stranger  contrast  than  that  between  Constantinople  as 
seen  from  the  Sea  of  Marmara  or  the  Bosporus  and 
Constantinople  as  depicted  in  the  slums  of  Galata  or 
Stambul  is  that  between  the  external  beauty  of  the 
Turkish  capital  and  the  miserable  Government  which  has 
its  seat  there.  During  ni}'  visits  there  I  consorted  with 
all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men,  and  the  universal  verdict 
was  that  of  all  existing  administrations  the  Turkish  is  the 
worst.  Do  not  let  it  be  supposed  that  people  make  any 
charge  against  the  Turks  as  a  race.  As  Burke  said  long 
ago,  it  is  a  rash  thing  to  bring  an  indictment  against  a 
whole  nation.  The  plain  Turk  of  the  country  districts  is 
an  honest  fellow  enough  ;  upon  that  all  are  agreed.  The 
foreign  merchants  at  Constantinople  find  them  most 
trustworthy  and  faithful,  and  there  are  big  European 
lirms  both  there  and  at  Smvrna  in  which  the  same  posts 
have  been  held  by  Turks  unto  the  third  and  fourth 
generation.  The  Turkish  soldier,  too,  is  sometimes,  as 
I  have  found  from  personal  experience,  good-natured 
and  willing  to    oblige.     But  as  for  the  officials,  in  the 

390 


Travels  and  Politics  in  the  Near  East 

words  of  a  very  distinguished  English  gentleman  who 
has  lived  in  Constantinople  many  years,  "  Nine  out  of 
every  ten  of  them  would  in  any  other  country  be  in 
gaol."  The  plain  fact  is,  that  it  is  as  hard  for  an 
Ottoman  official  to  be  honest  as  it  is  for  a  camel  to 
enter  through  the  eye  of  a  needle.  It  is  not  so  much 
the  fault  of  the  men  as  the  fault  of  the  system,  which 
is  thoroughly  bad  from  top  to  bottom.  The  pay  of 
ev^ery  Turkish  functionary  is  always  in  arrears,  some- 
times as  much  as  eight  months  at  a  time  ;  and  the  result 
is  that  the  unfortunate  man  has  to  live  on  credit  if  he 
can,  or  else  adopt  the  easier  plan  of  cheating  some  one 
else.  Out  of  this  state  of  things  the  usurers  make  a  very 
good  business.  They  offer  to  pav  officials  half  the 
amount  of  their  salaries  at  once,  on  condition  of  receiv- 
ing the  whole  amount  when  it  is  really  paid,  and  then  put 
the  Embassies  to  work  to  screw  this  money  out  of  the 
Turkish  Treasury.  But  if  the  position  of  the  Turkish 
official  at  home  be  unpleasant,  that  f)f  an  Ottoman 
Ambassador  abroad  is  even  worse,  for  the  latter  can  only 
obtain  a  very  limited  amount  of  credit  ;  and  I  know  of 
two  cases  in  which  these  representatives  of  the  Sultan 
had  to  flee  in  the  night  in  order  to  escape  their  creditors. 
In  addition  to  this  abuse,  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that 
all  the  good  appointments  in  the  Turkish  service  have  to 
be  paid  for — indirectly,  of  course — in  cash,  administered 
in  the  form  of  baksJiish,  and  the  official  who  secures  his 
coveted  post  by  this  means  is  naturally  out  of  pocket, 
and  recoups  himself  at  the  expense  of  his  subordinates. 
What  makes  it  worse  is  that  he  has  to  reimburse  himself 
in  a  short  space  of  time,  for  the  suspicious  temperament 
of  the  Sultan  hardly  ever  permits  a  provincial  Governor, 
or  vali,  to  remain  very  long  in  one  place,  lest  lie  should 
acquire  too  great  an  influence  over  the  people  of  his 
province.     Thus  a  man  may  be  placed  in  the  uttermost 

391 


Travels  and   Politics 

parts  of  Asia  one  year,  and  the  next  find  himself  in 
Albania  or  Macedonia,  saddled  with  the  cost  of  trans- 
porting his  whole  establishment  across  the  Turkish 
Empire.  Of  course,  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten  it  is  the 
underlings  who  have  to  pay  the  piper.  Here  and  there 
you  may  find  a  good  Governor,  like  the  7'ali  of  Brusa  or 
the  vali  of  Smyrna,  who  are  in  disgrace  at  Court,  and  are 
"  banished  "  to  those  parts  of  Asia  Minor,  which  they  have 
made  by  honesty  and  diligence  an  example  to  the  rest  of 
the  Sultan's  dominions,  just  as  the  old  vilayet  of  the 
Danube  was  in  the  too  brief  days  of  Midhat  Pasha.  But 
these  are  rare  exceptions  to  the  general  rule,  that  Turkish 
administration  is  synonymous  with  corruption,  ineffi- 
ciency, and  sloth.  The  good  men,  who  would  make 
honest  administrators,  hold  themselves  aloof  from  public 
affairs,  and  count  themselves  happy  if  they  are  left  alone 
to  the  enjoyment  of  their  estates. 

But  perhaps  the  most  odious  feature  of  Abdul  Hamid's 
rule  is  the  existence  of  a  herd  of  spies,  who  infest  the 
streets  and  are  far  more  obnoxious  than  the  poor  and 
miserable,  yet  kindly,  dogs  which  lie  all  day  in  the  gutters 
and  paths  of  Pera,  Galata,  and  Stambul.  For  the  political 
spies  are  the  enemies  of  every  man.  I  remember  one 
day  two  of  these  gentry  spending  a  whole  morning  out- 
side the  British  Post  Office  on  the  look-out  for  a  "  Young" 
Turk — that  is  to  say,  a  member  of  the  "  Young  Turkish 
party,"  which  the  Sultan  dreads  far  more  than  the 
Armenians  themselves.  Spies  infest  the  gates  of  Em- 
bassies, and  no  hotel  is  complete  without  one.  Fathers 
sometimes  spy  upon  their  sons,  brothers  on  each  other, 
and  sons  on  their  parents.  The  secret  service  fund 
amounts  to  ^^2,000,000  a  year,  and  from  six  hundred  to 
seven  hundred  reports  are  sent  in  by  spies  to  the  Sultan 
every  day.  Moreover,  there  are  two  sets  of  these  creatures, 
that  of  the  Palace  and  that  of  the  Porte,  who  spy  upon 

392 


in   the   Near   East 

one  another  as  well  as  upon  the  public.  But  even  this 
infamous  system  has  its  advantages,  for  it  is  possible  to 
bring  things  before  the  Sultan's  notice  in  this  way,  since 
the  spies  are  always  anxious  to  earn  their  money.  I 
remember  hearing  an  amusing  instance  of  this.  A  certain 
European  merchant  once  accepted  an  invitation  on 
board  a  foreign  man-of-war.  A  spy  at  once  made  out  of 
this  simple  incident  a  cock-and-bull  story  to  the  effect 
that  the  merchant  had  been  invited  in  order  to  concert  a 
plan  for  forcing  the  Dardanelles.  This  so  terrified  the 
Sultan  that  he  raised  the  spy's  rank  and  salary,  and 
ordered  that  every  facility  should  be  given  to  the  mer- 
chant in  his  dealings  with  refractory  customers  and  still 
more  refractory  judges.  Most  odious  of  all,  there  are 
wretches  who  ply  the  trade  of  agents  provocateurs,  luring 
unsuspecting  persons  into  talking  treason  against  the 
Padishah,  and  then  "  assneaking,"  English  schoolboys 
say  in  their  healthy  language,  to  Yildiz  Kiosk.  During 
the  last  eighteen  months  there  has,  it  is  true,  been  a  little 
more  liberty  of  political  discussion,  owing  to  the  fact  that 
the  Turkish  Government  wished  to  make  as  much  capital 
as  possible  out  of  its  successes  in  the  war.  That  the 
people  of  Constantmople  possess,  in  common  with  Western 
nations,  the  taste  for  newspaper  reading  is  now  clear,  for 
you  see  them  devouring  the  wretched  little  pink  Turkish 
and  Armenian  journals  on  the  steamboats,  in  the  trains, 
and  in  the  cafes.  War  intelligence  especially  appeals  to 
the  Turkish  reader,  and  the  Sultan  was  glad  to  divert  the 
attention  of  his  people  to  the  Spanish-American  struggle, 
which  filled  three-fourths  of  every  Turkish  paper  ;  but  our 
victories  in  Egypt  were  only  allowed  to  be  published  in  the 
vernacular  press  on  condition  that  the  English  were  not 
mentioned,  and  all  successes  were  ascribed  to  his  Majesty's 
vassals,  the  Egyptians.  Thus  these  papers  contain  nothing 
that  may,  by  the  highest  stretch  of  imagination,  be  des- 

393 


Travels  and   Politics 

cribed  as  the  free  expression  of  public  opinion.  A  gentle- 
man who  had  experience  as  editor  of  a  Bulgarian  paper  in 
Constantinople  has  described  to  me  the  rigorous  censor- 
ship exercised  over  the  press  in  Turkey.  Before  the 
journal  appeared  two  copies  of  it  had  to  be  sent  to  the 
Censor,  who  read  it  through,  and  marked  in  each  copy 
what  he  considered  as  objectionable.  He  then  retained 
one  copy  for  future  reference,  and  sent  the  other  back  to 
the  editor,  who  was  then  forced  to  take  out  the  offending 
matter,  and  substitute  something  else  filling  the  exact 
amount  of  vacant  space.  The  revised  copv  was  then 
compared  by  the  Censor  with  his  copy,  and  if  the  two  did 
not  tally  the  paper  was  not  allowed  to  be  sold.  Thus  it 
often  happens  that  the  publication  of  a  journal  is  delayed 
for  hours,  and  so  all  regular  delivery  is  prevented. 
Sometimes  the  Censor  actually  sits  in  the  newspaper 
office  and  reads  the  "  copy  "  before  it  goes  to  the  press. 
He  is  also  now  sufBciently  astute  to  read  between  the  lines 
ol  the  sarcastic  eulogies  of  Turkish  administration  with 
which  one  able  editor  used  to  delight  his  European 
readers.  Moreover,  as  there  is  a  different  Censor  for 
each  vilayet  or  province,  the  rules  of  what  is  objectionable 
and  what  is  not  vary  according  to  the  stupidity  or 
intelligence  of  these  respective  officials.  Thus,  to  instance 
a  notorious  case,  which  was  taken  up  bv  the  British 
Ambassador  some  time  ago,  a  religious  work,  which  had 
been  passed  by  the  Censor  at  Constantinople,  was  rejected 
by  the  Censor  at  Salonica,  and  accepted  by  the  similar 
official  at  Monastir.  Justice  in  such  matters  is,  therefore, 
to  use  an  old  expression  of  English  law,  simply  the  length 
of  each  Censor's  foot,  and  no  uniform  standard  prevails. 
Besides,  the  papers  are  compelled  to  insert  paragraphs 
containing  the  most  fulsome  praise  of  the  Sultan  ;  even 
in  the  week  of  the  massacres  one  of  these  veracious 
journals  was  forced  to  declare  that  "His  Majesty  is  beloved 

394 


in   the   Near   East 

by  all  the  peoples  over  whom  he  rules"  (!)     If  it  were 
not    for    the    foreign    post    olBces    in    Constantinople, 
European  residents  would  hardly  ever  receive  Western 
papers  at  all,  for  the  least  particle  of  anti-Turkish  news 
causes   the   confiscation    of   every    journal    that    comes 
within  the  clutches  of  the  Ottoman  authorities.     These 
post  offices,  of  which  there  are  five — the  British,  French, 
Austrian,  German,  and  Russian — are  an  immense  boon  to 
the  European  residents  there,  as  they  constitute  the  only 
trustworthy  means  of  obtaining  or  sending  letters.     For 
the   Turkish    postal    service    is    utterly    unreliable    and 
extremely    slow,    and    no    European    uses    it,  except   for 
internal  communications,  which    cannot  be  transmitted 
bv  means  of  the  foreign  post  offices.     Each  of  the  latter 
has  its  own  stamps,  surcharged  with  the  value  in  Turkish 
currency,  but  in  other  respects  the  same  as  those  in  daily 
use   at    home.     Indeed,    the   post-cards   are    exactly   the 
same,  having  no  surcharge  at  all.     The  existence  of  the 
British  Post  Office,  ably  presided  over  by  Mr.  F.  S.  Cobb, 
dates  from  the  Crimean  war,  and  was  originally  due  to 
the  requirements  of  our  soldiers  and  sailors.     Afterwards, 
when  the  peace  came,  it  was  f(nmd  so  useful  that  it  was 
continued,    in    spite    of    the    opposition    of    the    Turkish 
Government.     On  one  occasion  the  latter  threatened  to 
surround  it  with  a  cordon  of  soldiers  in  order  to  prevent 
any    one    using    it,  but    this  strong    measure    was    never 
actuallv  adopted.     A  similar  institution  exists  at  Smyrna, 
and    at    last    the    British    Chamber   of   Commerce    has 
succeeded  in  inducing  the  Home  Government  to  create 
one  at  Salonica.     Without  these  post  offices  all  business 
here  would  be  well-nigh   impossible,    especially   as    the 
Turkish  post  office  has  no  money-order  departnient.     As 
it  is,  there  is  no  delivery  of  letters  on  the  Bosporus  and 
in  the  other  suburbs  of  Constantinople,   because   some 
few  persons  used  the  local  post  to  send  threatening  letters 

395 


THE    BRITISH    PDST    OFFICE,    GAI.ATA. 


Travels  and  Politics  in  the  Near  East 

to  the  Sultan  !  With  characteristic  logic  the  Ottoman 
authorities  abolished  the  local  post  ;  so,  if  you  live  at 
Therapia  or  Buyukdereh,  you  have  to  send  into  town, 
an  hour  and  a  half  by  steamer,  for  your  letters.  Tele- 
graphing is  very  precarious,  for  no  telegram  can  ever  be 
depended  upon  to  arrive  in  Turkey.  It  thus  almost 
invariably  happens  that  British  ship  captains  leaving 
Constantinople,  and  telegraphing  for  coals  to  be  ready  at 
the  Dardanelles,  arrive  at  the  latter  place  only  to  discover 
that  their  messages  have  never  been  delivered.  News- 
paper telegrams  of  any  importance  are  always  posted  to 
Philippopolis  or  Odessa  enclosed  in  a  letter  and  then 
telegraphed  on.  P'or  the  Censor  is  much  more  suspicious 
of  these  messages  than  of  anything  else,  and  often  rejects 
them  on  the  most  trivial  grounds.  To  crown  all, 
when  the  railways  are  under  water  in  Servia,  as  usually 
happens  once  a  year,  the  only  way  to  communicate  with 
the  outer  world  is  to  send  a  letter  by  sea  to  Constanta, 
and  so  through  Roumania  to  Western  Europe— in  many 
respects  a  much  safer  route.  Such  are  the  resources 
of  civilisation  under  the  "  enlightened  "  rule  of  Abdul 
Hamid  II.  at  the  close  of  the  nineteenth  century.  After 
Athens,  in  spite  of  the  faults  of  the  Greek  administration, 
Constantinople  is  darkness  itself.  Here,  indeed,  in  the 
words  of  the  old  hymn,  *'  every  prospect  pleases,  but 
only  man  " — official  man  in  a  uniform — "  is  vile." 

No  country  can  be  considered  in  a  healthy  condition 
unless  it  possesses  a  decent  currency,  and  in  this  respect 
Turkey  is  in  a  deplorable  state.  At  the  first  blush,  indeed, 
a  traveller  coming  from  Greece  is  apt  to  think  that,  in 
this  respect  at  least,  Ottoman  civilisation  is  ahead  of 
Athenian.  For  he  reads  in  his  guide-book  that  there  is  a 
metal  currency  in  Turkey,  and  is  overjoyed  at  the  prospect 
of  getting  rid  of  the  dirty  paper  which  does  duty  for  all 
but  the  very  smallest  coins  in  Greece,  and  is  sometimes 

397 


Travels  and   Politics 

worth  little  more  than  half  of  its  face  value.  But  a  little 
practical  experience  of  the  Turkish  coinage  soon  makes 
him  reconsider  his  too  hasty  decision.  Nominally,  the 
Turkish  system  is  fairly  simple,  for  in  theory  the  Turkish 
lira  or  pound,  equivalent  to  about  i8s.  of  our  money, 
is  worth  ICO  piastres,  while  each  piastre,  equivalent 
to  rather  more  than  2d.,  is  worth  40  paras.  The 
mcdjidich,  too,  which  may  be  taken  as  the  basis  of  most 
calculations,  is  a  handsome  and  substantial  silver  coin, 
not  unlike  our  4s.  piece,  and  worth,  roughly,  3s.  4d.  But 
here  the  utter  want  of  system  which  is  the  curse  of  Turkey 
at  once  makes  itself  felt.  The  iiicdjidich  has  diffei-ent 
values  not  only  in  different  cities  of  Turkey,  but  in 
different  transactions  in  the  same  city.  Thus,  at  Constan- 
tinople it  is  generally  accepted  at  its  full  nominal  value  of 
20  silver  piastres.  But  in  Smyrna  it  is  worth  32  piastres, 
and  in  Salonica  only  19,  so  that  the  utmost  confusion  is 
caused,  and  immense  possibilities  of  swindling  the  unwary 
traveller  present  themselves  to  the  astute  Oriental  mind. 
But  that  is  not  all.  Even  in  Ccjnstantinople  you  do  not 
always  get  20  piastres  for  your  iiwdjidicli.  On  the  steam- 
boats and  at  the  railway  stations  it  is  always  reckoned  as 
worth  only  19  piastres,  and  if  you  are  purchasing  coffee, 
the  custom  of  the  trade  computes  it  as  worth  25  piastres. 
Bad  as  this  is,  it  is  much  worse  when  you  are  dealing 
with  small  change.  It  is  almost  impossible  to  obtain  any 
cpiantity  of  small  money  in  Constantinople  owing  to  the 
pettifogging  practices  of  the  Government.  Whenever  any 
small  pieces  are  coined  they  are  at  once  bought  up  by 
the  Siirrd/s,  or  money-changers,  who  infest  the  streets,  and 
who  make  terms  with  the  Governmcn.t  for  the  express 
purpose  of  ''  cornering  "  all  the  small  change.  Thus  it  is 
usual  for  the  railway  and  steamboat  companies,  as  well  as 
many  private  persons,  to  refuse  to  give  change  at  all  ;  and 
unless  you  have  the  exact  amount  of  your  fare  or  your 

39« 


in  the  Near   East 

purchase  in  your  purse  you  must  go  to  the  sarrafs  and 
buy  change  from  them  at  a  loss  of  5  per  cent,  on  every 
coin  changed.  Thus  if  you  change  a  gold  piece  into 
iiudjldicJi  you  lose  5  per  cent.,  while  if  you  change  the 
iiicdjidieli  again  into  smaller  coins  you  lose  5  per  cent, 
more.  It  need  hardly  be  added  that  the  crafty  sdrrdt 
invariably  gives  you  change  in  the  highest  possible  denomi- 
nation, so  that  you  may  be  compelled  to  have  recourse  to 
him  again  at  once.  In  places  where  no  sayrdf  exists  one 
is  put  at  times  hi  the  most  awkward  dilemmas  for  lack  of 
a  few  pence.  Thus  one  day  I  went  into  a  country  hotel 
and  ordered  two  glasses  of  lemonade,  price  4d.  When  I 
rose  to  go  I  found  that  I  had  nothing  less  than  a  silver 
piece  worth  lod,  or  a  quarter  of  a  mcdjidieli,  in  my  pocket, 
which  I  tendered  to  the  waiter  and  asked  for  change. 
The  whole  hotel  and  the  whole  village  were  ransacked  in 
vain  for  6cl.  change,  and  at  last  the  hotel-keeper  came  back 
and  implored  me  to  accept  the  lemonade  as  a  gift,  as  he 
could  not  get  change  anywhere  !  To  such  straits  are 
people  reduced  by  the  desire  of  the  Government  to  make 
an  unfair  profit.  No  wonder  that  even  well-to-do  persons 
treasure  up  their  small  silver  and  metal  pieces,  and  among 
the  poor  this  is  a  regular  system.  For  example,  the  ferry- 
boat from  Galata  to  Stambul  costs  one  inetallik,  or  about 
h^.,  each  person.  When  using  this  boat  one  invariably 
notices  that  one  of  the  poorer  passengers  offers  to  pay  a 
lump  sum  in  silver  for  all  his  fellows  and  then  collects  the 
amoimt  in  iiictalliks  from  them.  So  eager  is  the  competi- 
tion for  small  change,  so  great  is  the  desire  to  avoid  the 
necessity  of  paying  for  the  proud  privilege  of  possessing 
it.  How  the  beggars  in  this  topsy-turvy  country  manage 
to  get  a  living  I  cannot  understand  ;  for  small  coins, 
which  would  be  lavished  upon  them  elsewhere,  are  just 
what  no  one  wishes  to  dispose  of,  but  what  every  one  desires 
to  keep,   when    once    obtained,  if    only  to    save  trouble. 

399 


Travels  and   Politics 

The  annoyance  caused  to  business  men  by  this  state  of 
things  is  very  great,  and  the  nominal  and  real  value  of  the 
Turkish  coins,  according  as  they  are  reckoned  in  gold  or 
silver,  makes  it  necessary  in  Turkey,  as  in  Greece,  to  keep  a 
double  set  of  accounts,  and  this  increases  the  cost  of  book- 
keeping. Finally,  as  a  last  straw,  there  are  a  number  of 
debased  and  false  coins  in  circulation,  which  completes 
the  confusion. 

Perhaps  of  all  trades  in  Turkey  that  of  a  bookseller  is 
the  most  arduous  and  uncertain.  For  it  is  against  books 
that  all  the  thunderbolts  of  the  Turkish  authorities  are 
most  firmly  and  persistently  directed.  Whenever  you 
land  at  a  Turkish  port,  your  luggage  is  ransacked  for  guide- 
books or  any  other  literature  about  the  country,  which  is 
contraband  of  this  customs'  war.  Even  the  usual  device 
of  a  bakshish  may  prove  unavailing  here,  though  it  once 
saved  me  from  losing  some  Servian  literature  about 
Macedonia,  which  the  Turks  would  dearly  have  liked  to 
confiscate,  if  they  had  but  discovered  it.  Even  the  harm- 
less, necessary  "  Murray,"  or  the  blameless  "  Bradshaw," 
is  anathema  maranatha  to  the  Turkish  official  mind, 
intensely  ignorant,  and  therefore  intensely  suspicious  of 
all  printed  matter.  A  friend  of  mine — a  bookseller  in 
Turkey — has  given  me  some  amusing  instances  of  the 
vagaries  of  these  gentry.  On  one  occasion  he  ordered 
out  from  London  some  copies  of  that  pleasant  book  of 
our  nursery  days,  "  Sandford  and  Merton."  All  the  copies 
were  confiscated,  although  the  maddest  of  censors  could 
not  pretend  that  the  improving  discourses  of  Mr.  Barlow 
to  his  two  young  pupils  were  in  the  nature  of  a  political 
propaganda.  But  the  mere  fact  that  the  pet  dog  in  the 
narrative  was  called  "  Turk  "  was  sufficient  to  prevent  the 
sale  of  the  book  in  Turkey  !  For  an  equally  absurd 
reason  the  whole  of  Shakespeare's  works  are  forbidden 
there,  because  of  the  murder  of  the  King  in  "  Hamlet." 

400 


in   the   Near   East 

Such  an  incident  is  considered  in  Turkish  official  circles 
as  dangerous  to  public  morals,  because  it  might  lead  some 
Shakespearean  student  to  throw  a  bomb  at  the  Sultan  on 
his  way  to  the  Selamlik  !  Similarly,  the  local  news- 
papers were  forbidden  to  publish  the  news  of  the  attempt 
upon  the  King  of  Italy,  and  were  made  to  attribute  the 
death  of  the  Empress  of  Austria  to  natural  causes.^ 
By  some  equally  recondite  official  theory  "  Chambers's 
Encyclopaedia"  is  on  the  Index  Expitrgaiovius,  and  can 
only  be  smuggled  in  without  its  title-page.  So  harsh  is 
this  system  at  the  Custom  Houses  that  the  booksellers 
usually  have  their  books  posted  to  them  by  book-post, 
as  the  only  safe  way  of  obtaining  them.  A  large  part 
of  the  excellent  library  of  Robert  College,  the  admirable 
American  establishment  at  Rumili  Hissar,  was  collected 
in  this  rather  expensive  way. 

But  not  only  may  not  the  traveller  bring  literature  into 
this  country,  he  must  not  travel  at  all  in  Turkey  without 
the  cognisance  of  the  police.  You  have  your  English 
passport  all  duly  vise,  and  you  imagine  in  the  innocence 
of  your  heart  that  you  have  fultilled  all  the  necessary 
formalities,  and  that  Lord  Salisbury's  signature  will  be  an 
open  sesame  all  over  the  Turkish  Empire.  Not  so.  Before 
starting  from  one  Turkish  province  to  another  you  must 
purchase  what  is  called  a  yol  tcskcrch,  or  travelling  pass- 
port, an  appalling  looking  document  drawn  up  in  Turkish, 
with  the  Sultan's  signatiu-e  at  the  top,  and  a  full  description 
of  yourself,  your  age,  profession,  intentions,  appearance, 
&c.,  below.  If  you  have  a  wife  with  you,  her  name  is 
relegated  to  a  small  space  on  the  back  of  your  icskcrch, 
and  half-contemptuous  officialdom  disposes  of  her  in  a 
few  flourishes.  Even  the  transport  of  a  few  chairs  and 
tables  from  one  place  to  another  cannot  be  affected  with- 

'  During  the  German  Emperor's  late  visit  the  French  edition  of  the  Ser.'ct  was 
made  to  substitute  utopie  and  utopistes  for  anarchic  and  anaichi:<tcs. 

401  2D 


Travels  and   Politics 

out  one  of  these  permits,  and  the  annual  exodus  of  Euro- 
peans from  the  city  to  the  Bosporus,  Phanaraki,  or  the 
Islands  is  thus  impeded  by  otBcial  red-tape.     Moreover, 
the  ha  nulls  or  porters  form  a  close  trades'  union  among 
themselves,  of   which  the  Sultan  is  protector,  and  it  is 
necessary  to  employ  those  of  your  own  quarter  and  pay 
the  trade  union  rate  of  wages.     In  this  respect  Constanti- 
nople  resembles  more  civilised    cities.     Even  then  you 
are  not  allowed  to  travel  without  let  or  hindrance.     P"or 
each  separate  province  of  the  Empire  you  have  to  obtain 
a  fresh  7'isa  from  the  Turkish  police,  and  as  this  can  only 
be   obtained    on    certain    days   and   at   certain   hours   it 
involves  a  great  loss  of  time.     On  Fridays,  for  instance,  it 
being  the  Turkish  Sunday,  the  police  offices  are  closed, 
and  vou  have  to  pay  extra  baksJiisli  to  get  a  r/.sv?  on   that 
day.     On  Sunday,  again,  the  police  sometimes  close  out 
of   deference  for  Christian  susceptibilities,   just  as  they 
occasionally  close   on  Saturda^^s  out  of   respect  for   the 
Jews,  and  tlius  you  have  to  pay  extra  on  these  days  too  ! 
Besides,  the  loss  of  time  is  not  only  caused  by  the  for- 
malities of  obtaining  a  Turkish   passport  ;  scarcely  less 
time  is  wasted  in  weary  waiting  in  the  Custom  House 
while    a  muddle-headed   officer   painfully   peruses  every 
word  of   the  precious  document,  and  notes  down  in  a 
book  the  chief  items  of  it,  supplementing  them  by  further 
questions  as  to  the  duration  of  your  stay,  your  place  of 
abode,    and   so    on.       Instead    of    doing    everything   to 
facilitate  intercourse  and  trade  within  its  dominions,  the 
Turkish  Government  thus  puts  all  possible  impediments 
in  the  way  of  travellers,  and  causes  them  a  host  of  small 
and    petty   inconveniences,   which    do    not    in    the    least 
benefit  the   Imperial    Treasury.      As  for  developing  the 
country,  that  is  the  last  thing  desired  by  this  darkened 
administration.      Turkey    is   naturally  a  very  rich  land, 
which  only  needs  foreign  capital  and  foreign  control  to 

402 


in   the  Near  East 

make  it  very  profitable.  But  concessions  can  only  be 
wrung  from  the  Sultan  by  immense  baksliisJi,  and  are  then 
often  neutralised  afterwards.  An  old  resident  in  Constanti- 
nople told  me  a  good  story  on  this  subject.  During  the 
brief  existence  of  Midhat's  Parliament,  one  of  the  ministers 
was  impeached  for  having  sold  a  forest  near  Philippopolis 
for  ;^^T.ioo,ooo.  The  minister's  friends  feared  for  his 
head.  Not  so  the  wily  statesman  ;  for  he  knew  that  it 
was  not  himself  but  the  Sultan  who  had  had  the  cash. 
More  railways  are  urgently  needed,  yet  they  are  only  built 
for  strategic  reasons  as  a  rule.  As  one  result  of  their  aid 
to  Turkey  in  the  last  two  years,  the  Germans  are  said  to 
have  obtained  a  concession  for  a  railway  from  Monastir, 
the  present  terminus  of  the  branch  line  from  Salonica, 
to  Joannina,  the  capital  of  Albania,  as  well  as  a  line  to 
Elassona,  the  Turkish  base  of  operations  in  the  late  war. 
They  are  now  trying  to  get  leave  to  make  one  from  Asiatic 
Scutari  to  Erzeroum.  But  English  enterprise  is  dis- 
couraged, for  we  are  not  in  favour  at  Yildiz  Kiosk,  where 
the  Germans  are  regarded  in  the  light  of  benefactors  at 
present.  All  British  enterprises  are  opposed  by  our  rivals, 
who  are  strongly  backed  by  their  Government,  while  ours 
does  nothing  for  its  subjects  in  Turkey.  Hence  the 
British  rarely  go  to  law,  while  the  Germans  do  so  with 
confidence.  Any  decent  Government  would  long  ere 
this  have  opened  up  Asia  Minor,  where  fruit  often  rots 
upon  the  trees  simply  because  there  are  no  facilities  for 
bringing  it  down  to  the  coast.  Again,  even  so  near  the 
capital  as  San  Stefano,  the  village  to  which  the  Russians 
penetrated  in  1878,  vast  quantities  of  land  are  allowed  to 
lie  waste  because  of  the  bakshish  which  would  have  to  be 
paid  in  order  to  get  a  lease.  The  thorny  question  of  the 
Constantinople  quay  dues  has  arisen  out  of  a  similar 
difficulty.  The  company  had  to  pay  so  much  in  bnkshisJi 
to  officials,  from  the  doorkeeper  of  the  minister  up  to  the 

403 


Travels  and   Politics 

minister  himself,  that  it  had  to  recoup  itself  by  charging 
prohibitive  dues  to  the  merchants.  As  it  often  happens 
that  a  minister  falls  from  power  during  protracted  nego- 
tiations, the  process  of  hakshisli  has  to  begin  all  over 
again  from  the  bottom  rung  of  the  ladder,  for  a  change 
of  minister  implies  the  change  of  all  his  subordinates. 
Thus  haksJiisJi  is  an  immense  tax  on  industry,  which  in 
Turkey  would  scarcely  exist,  were  it  not  for  foreigners. 
Let  any  one  contrast  the  energy  of  Roumania,  which 
has  an  admirable  railway  system  and  the  finest  steamers 
in  the  Orient,  with  the  inaction  of  Turkey  ;  or 
let  him  traverse  Bulgaria,  where  new  lines  of  rail- 
way are  always  being  projected,  and,  what  is  more, 
carried  out  :  and  then  ask  himself  whether  the  former 
dependencies  of  the  Ottoman  Empire  have  not  benefited 
by  their  emancipation.  Or  again,  let  him  visit  Bosnia, 
and  see  what  twenty  years  of  Austrian  government  have 
made  of  a  wald  Turkish  province.  Then  let  him  come  to 
Constantinople,  and  he  will  see  what  Turkish  rule  means. 
More  than  in  any  country,  except  perhaps  in  big  Russia 
and  little  Montenegro,  is  the  Sovereign  the  absolute  arbiter 
of  the  national  destinies  in  Turkey.  The  Padishah  is  an 
irresponsible  autocrat,  whose  Ministers  come  and  go  at 
his  bidding,  who  has  no  Parliament  to  check  his  policy, 
and  no  press  worthy  of  the  name  to  criticise  his  acts. 
The  one  otftcial  who  has  the  legal  authority  to  depose 
him,  the  ShcikJi-iil-Isldiii,  or  Grand  Mufti,  and  who  exer- 
cised that  authority  in  the  cases  of  Sultans  Abdul  Aziz 
and  Murad  V.  in  1876,  is  now  completely  powerless, 
for  the  present  holder  of  the  office  is  kept,  like  Osman 
Pasha,  the  brave  defender  of  Plevna,  a  close  prisoner 
within  the  precincts  of  Yildiz  Kiosk,  where  neither  the 
one  nor  the  other  can  do  much  harm  to  the  Sultan.  But, 
in  spite  of  his  absolute  power,  Abdul  Hamid  II.  lives  in 
constant  terror  of  assassination.     Death  is  his  continual 

404 


in   the   Near   East 

dread.     A  dervish  once  prophesied  that  he  would  die  of 
cholera  ;  hence,  whenever  he  has  a  pain  in  his  stomach 
he  is  beside  himself  with  fear,  and  whenever  his  ministers 
require   money   for   sanitary   purposes    they   have    only 
to   create  a  cholera  scare  and  their  request   is   granted 
at  once.     But  nowadays  the  "  Shadow  of  God  "  fears  the 
hand  of  the  assassin  far  more  than  "the  pestilence  that 
walketh  in  darkness."     Electric  lighting  is  almost  entirely 
forbidden  here  because  some  one  told  the  Sultan  that  a 
dynamo    would  be   necessary  for  the  purpose,   and  the 
timorous   monarch    mistook    the  word    for  "  dynamite." 
Fear  of  dynamite,  too,  has  led  him  to  close  to  visitors  the 
the  famous  cistern  of  looi  columns,  which  is  one  of  the 
wonders  of  Stambul.     Every  particle  of  food  which  he 
eats  is   first  tasted  by  his  tasters,  and  then  enclosed  in 
sealed   vessels,  which    are   opened    in    his   presence,     A 
whole  army  guards  Yildiz  Kiosk  night  and  day,  and  when 
once  a  week  at  Friday's  Selamlik  the  lord  of  the  Ottoman 
Empire   goes    forth    to    his    devotions,  fifteen    thousand 
soldiers  are  needed  to  protect  him  from  his  subjects  as 
he  traverses  in   his    carriage    the    hundred  yards  which 
separate  the    gates    of   his   grounds   from    the    beautiful 
Hamidieh  Mosque,  which  he  now  always  selects  as  the 
nearest,  and  therefore  the  safest,  place  of  worship  in  his 
capital.     I  saw  him  one  day  at  this  function,  riding  in  his 
carriage   with   old  Osman   Pasha  facing  him — the  latter 
cool  and  calm  as  in  the  shot-riven  battlements  of  Plevna  ; 
the  former  white  as  ashes,  his  quivering  lip  and  nervous 
face  betraying  the  constant  fear  in  which  he  passes  his 
life.     As  he  drove  past  the  long  line  of  soldiers,  all  of 
whom    carry  unloaded   rifles  for   fear   of   treachery,   he 
glanced  uneasily  from   side  to  side,  as  if  to  detect  the 
presence  of  some  possible  assassin.     In  former  days  it 
was  his  custom  to  go  about  more  freely  ;    but  now  he 
never  visits  the  city,  save  once  a  year,  when  he  journeys 

405 


Travels  and  Politics  in  the  Near  East 

from  Yildiz  to  Santa  Sophia  and  the  SeragHo.  Last  time 
the  precautions  taken  for  his  safety  were  extraordinary. 
Two  different  routes  were  chosen,  and  his  carriage  was 
sent  closed,  while  he  went  by  sea.  On  another  occasion, 
when  he  drove,  he  changed  the  order  of  his  own  and  his 
mother's  carriage  at  the  last  moment,  so  that  if  any 
attempt  were  made  upon  his  life  the  victim  would  be  his 
mother  and  not  himself.  Who  would  be  Sultan  on  such 
conditions  ?  Better  than  anyone  else  does  Abdul  Hamid 
II.  exemplify  those  terrible  lines  of  Horace,  in  which  the 
old  Roman  poet  has  described  the  fate  of  the  Sicilian 
tyrant,  over  whose  head  the  naked  sword  is  ever  sus- 
pended by  a  single  thread.  Many  people  have  wished  to 
take  revenge  upon  the  Sultan  for  his  treatment  of  the 
Armenians,  but  no  punishment  that  has  ever  been  devised 
could  exceed  the  daily  and  hourly  sufferings  of  mind 
w^hich  he  endures.  Without  a  single  real  friend,  he  sees 
an  enemy  in  every  one,  and  trusts  no  man  long. 

His  system  of  government  is  simple  enough.  In 
foreign,  and  in  domestic  politics,  he  makes  it  his  maxim  to 
play  ofi  one  person  against  another.  Every  one  knows 
how  successfully  he  has  practised  this  device  against  the 
six  Great  Powers,  but  it  is  not  so  generally  recognised  in 
England  that  he  manages  his  ministers  in  the  same  way. 
Whenever  any  of  his  subjects  become  very  popular,  like 
Osman  Pasha  and  Edhem  Pasha,  the  Sultan  at  once 
strives  to  counteract  their  influence.  When  Osman  left 
last  year  for  Thessaly  there  was  a  good  example  of  this. 
It  had  been  announced  that  the  great  soldier  would  leave 
in  the  afternoon,  and  accordingly  a  huge  crowd  filled  the 
approaches  to  the  station  to  do  him  honour.  But  the 
Sultan,  fearful  of  a  demonstration,  detained  Osman  till 
the  evening.  In  this  case,  however,  Abdul  Hamid  was 
foiled,  for  the  crowd  waited  and  waited  until  the 
favourite    hero    came.     I    once    lieard    a    very    amusing 

407 


Travels   and   Politics 

instance  of  the  Sultan's  capacity  for  this  sort  of  thing. 
When  Prince  P'erdinand  of  Bulgaria  visited  Constantinople 
he  was  naturally  desirous  to  see  Robert  College,  where  so 
many  Bulgarians  are  educated.  He  accordingly  set  aside 
a  day  in  his  list  of  engagements  for  the  purpose,  and 
appointed  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  as  the  hour  of 
his  arrival  there.  Early  in  the  morning  of  that  day  the 
Sultan  sent  a  special  message  to  the  Prince,  saying  that 
he  particularly  wished  to  see  him  alone  at  3.30.  The 
Prince  knew  that  the  object  of  this  manoeuvre  was  to 
prevent  his  visit  to  the  College,  an  institution  of  which 
the  Sultan  is  extremely  suspicious.  At  the  same  time  he 
did  not  desire  to  offend  his  suzerain  by  refusing  to  obey 
what  v/as  an  Imperial  command.  But  the  Prince  has 
not  been  ruler  of  Bulgaria  for  all  these  years  without 
having  learned  how  to  fight  the  Sultan  with  his  own 
weapons.  He  accordingly  returned  a  polite  message  to 
say  that  he  would  be  with  the  Sultan  at  the  time  ap- 
pointed, and  at  once  ordered  his  luncheon  to  be  served 
and  his  carriage  to  be  made  ready  for  a  start  to  Robert 
College  in  a  few  minutes.  After  devouring  his  repast 
with  his  shoes  upon  his  feet  and  his  staff  in  his  hand, 
the  astute  Coburger  drove  in  hot  haste  to  the  College, 
inspected  the  building,  and  kept  his  appointment  with 
his  suzerain.  That  time  Abdul  Hamid  felt  that  he  had 
caught  a  Tartar.  Yet  the  Prince's  behaviour  had  been 
what  diplomatists  call  perfectly  "  correct  !  " 

According  to  a  well-known  story,  which  I  never 
credited  until  I  had  seen  the  Sultan  face  to  face,  the 
author  of  the  Armenian  massacres  is  himself  an  Armenian. 
He  possesses  in  a  marked  degree  the  distinguishing 
feature  of  that  nationality — the  large  hooked  nose,  by 
which  you  can  always  tell  an  Armenian  in  the  streets  of 
Constantinople,  and  he  has  been  even  called  by  pure  Turks 
**  the  bastard  of  an  Armenian."     He  has,  too,  in  consider- 

408 


in   the  Near  East 


able  measure  the  commercial  instincts  of  the  Armenian 
race,  which  are  not  shared  by  the  pure  Osmanli.  It  is 
generally  supposed  that  he  is  extremely  anxious  to  hoard 
up  money  for  a  rainy  day.  What  he  does  feel  in 
common  with  the  Turk  is  that  unbounded  dislike  of  the 
Armenians  which  is  prevalent  among  the  Moslems. 
Originally  the  Armenians  were  the  jackals  of  the  Turks, 
who    despised   them    but    found    them   useful.     But  the 


CAKTS   USED   TO   COXVKY    MASSACRED   ARMENIANS. 

(.Fioin  a  Pholo.  by  Mr.  F.  S.  Cobb.) 

present  Sultan,  finding  that  the  defeats  of  1877  and  his 
own  doubtful  parentage  had  discredited  him  as  a  civil 
sovereign  among  his  subjects,  resolved  to  emphasise  his 
spiritual  authority  as  Khalif.  To  this  end  he  revived  the 
fanaticism  of  the  lower  classes,  and  as  this  fanaticism 
wanted  a  vent,  let  it  loose  upon  the  Armenians,  who  were 
at  once  the  best  educated,  the  most  progressive  and  the 
least  warlike  of  his  Christian  subjects.     Had  thev  been 

409 


Travels  and  Politics 

Montenegrins  they  would  not  have  allowed  themselves  to 
he  butchered  as  they  were,  for  of  all  the  many  Monte- 
negrin servants  in  Constantinople,  only  one  deserted  his 
post  during  the  massacres.  True,  even  the  Sultan  cannot 
dispense  with  Armenian  brains  in  the  conduct  of  public 
affairs,  and  the  Under-Secretary  at  the  Foreign  Office, 
Artin  Pasha,  is  an  Armenian,  as  are  not  a  few  other 
officials  here.  Artin  on  one  occasion  threw  up  his  office 
in  consequence  of  the  insults  which  he  received  from  his 
Turkish  colleagues,  but  the  Sultan  ordered  him  to  resume 
it  for  the  very  reason  that  he  was  despised  and  therefore 
harmless.  But  the  Armenians  inspire  in  the  Turks  a 
hatred  such  as  no  other  Christian  race  causes  them,  and 
the  worst  of  it  is  that  the  Armenians  have  not,  like  the 
Greeks,  Serbs,  Bulgarians,  and  Wallachs  living  in  the 
Turkish  dominions.  Consuls  and  diplomatic  agents  of 
their  own  race  to  whom  they  can  appeal.  So  bitter  is 
the  feeling  of  the  Sultan,  that  he  has  prohibited  the 
importation  of  English  atlases,  because  part  of  Asia 
Minor  is  described  in  them  as  "Armenia."  Turkish 
officialdom  recognises  no  such  place  ;  for  "  Armenia  "  it 
substitutes  "the  Asiatic  provinces  of  Turkey,  partially 
inhabited  by  Armenians."     Can  pedantry  go  farther  ? 

Needless  to  say,  the  Sultan's  policy  has  greatly 
injured  trade  alike  in  the  capital  and  in  the  pro- 
vinces ;  for  many  Armenian  traders  have  fled  and  taken 
their  connection  with  them  to  Bulgaria  and  elsewhere, 
while  the  actual  loss  of  so  many  lives  has  entailed  a  great 
diminution  of  the  country's  wealth.  Nowadays  the 
Sovereign's  ministers  are  not  allowed  to  visit  one 
another's  houses,  and  in  many  places  on  the  Bosporus 
boating  is  forbidden  after  sunset,  simply  from  fear  of 
plots  and  conspiracies.  For  the  Sultan,  as  he  patheti- 
cally told  a  British  Ambassador,  can  trust  no  one. 
No  Sovereign  is  so  overworked,  for  the  smallest  matters 

410 


in   the   Near   East 

come  before  this  man  without  friends.  On  one  occasion 
a  foreign  diplomatist  found  his  Majesty  revising  the 
rules  for  a  Pera  music-hall,  simply  because  he  could  trust 
no  one  else  to  do  it.  A  similar  dread  has  induced  the 
Sultan  to  set  his  face  against  photography.  Abdul  Aziz 
was  a  great  patron  of  the  art,  and  once  gave  valuable 
hints  to  the  photographer  who  took  his  portrait  for 
presentation  to  the  old  German  Kaiser.  But  Abdul 
Hamid  II.  has  never  been  photographed  since  he  became 
Sultan — so  the  leading  photographer  of  Pera  told  me, 
and  all  published  photographs  of  him  are  therefore 
embellishments  of  his  early  portraits  taken  before  he 
ascended  the  throne  more  than  twenty  years  ago.  At  the 
same  time,  it  must  be  admitted  that  they  give  a  very  fair 
idea  of  what  he  looks  like  now.  From  what  has  been 
said  it  must  be  clear  to  every  one  that  so  long  as  such  a 
Sovereign  as  this  guides  the  destinies  of  Turkey  there  will 
be  no  chance  of  reform.  There  have  been  Sultans  in  the 
past  who  were  reformers,  like  Mahmiid  II.  ;  while  most 
of  the  older  Pddishdlis  were,  at  any  rate,  brave  men,  if 
they  were  often  cruel.  Fortunately  for  them,  however, 
there  were  in  their  days  no  newspaper  correspondents 
to  narrate  their  cruelties.  But  Abdul  Hamid  II.  only 
deserves  the  usual  title  of  all  Sultans,  that  of  Hunkidr,  or 
**  The  Manslayer,"  in  the  sense  that  he  has  butchered 
men  in  cold  blood,  rather  than  in  the  sense  that  he 
has  slain  them  in  war.  Intelligent  observers  doubt, 
however,  whether  even  a  complete  change  of  dynasty 
could  regenerate  Turkey.  Perhaps  a  military  dictator 
might  be  the  best  ruler  in  the  present  imperfect  state 
of  things.  One  fact  is  clear  :  so  long  as  Sultans  are 
educated  as  they  are  under  the  corrupting  influences 
of  the  harem,  so  long  will  they  be  narrow-minded  bigots 
at  the  best. 

To     the    deplorably   backward    condition    of   Turkish 

411 


Travels  and  Politics  in  the  Near  East 

education  there  is  one  bright  exception,  Robert  College, 
an  institution  which  has  already  had  so  much  influence 
upon  the  history  of  the  Balkan  Peninsula,  and  is  likely 
to  be  of  such  great  service  in  the  future  that  it  deserves 
special  mention.  Robert  College  owes  both  its  name  and 
its  origin  to  Mr,  Christopher  R.  Robert,  an  American  mer- 
chant, who  came  to  Turkey  during  the  Crimean  War,  and 
was  deeply  grieved  to  find  that  the  country,  in  which  he 
was  much  interested,  possessed  nothing  in  the  nature  of  a 
University  or  High  School.  Mr.  Robert  communicated 
his  scheme  for  the  creation  of  some  such  institution 
to  Dr.  Cyrus  Hamlin,  whose  daughter,  Mrs.  Washburn, 
has  passed  her  whole  life  at  the  College.  The  first 
beginnings  of  the  College  took  the  shape  of  a  hired 
house  at  Bebek,  a  charming  little  village  on  the 
Bosporus,  which  bears  in  Turkish  the  appropriate 
name  of  ''The  Baby."  From  this  "  Baby,"  born  in  1863, 
grew  up  the  splendid  collegiate  buildings  on  the  heights 
above  Bebek.  Meanwhile  Mr.  Robert  endeavoured  to 
obtain  from  Sultan  Abdul  Aziz  permission  to  found  a 
college  on  a  considerable  scale  on  ground  of  its  own. 
For  a  long  time  the  Turkish  Government  refused,  until 
at  last  one  day  a  happy  accident  led  to  the  grant  of 
the  long-sought  Iradi'.  It  chanced  that  an  American 
man-of-war  was  at  Constantinople,  and  the  commander 
was  entertained  at  a  dinner  on  shore,  at  which  several 
Turkish  ofticials  were  present.  During  dinner  the 
American  ofticer  innocently  dropped  the  remark  that 
it  was  a  pity  that  the  Turks  would  not  allow  his  fellow- 
countryman,  Mr.  Robert,  to  found  an  institution  which 
would  so  greatly  benefit  the  Turkish  Empire.  The 
Turkish  of^cials  at  the  table,  suspicious  as  usual,  mistook 
this  casual  remark  for  a  threat,  which  would  be  backed  by 
the  guns  of  the  American  man-of-war.  They  accordingly 
reported  the  incident  to  the  Sultan,  who  took  the  same 

412 


Travels  and   Politics 

view  and  at  once  gave  orders  for  the  Iradi-  to  be  made 
out.  This  was  in  1869,  and  on  July  4th  of  the  same  year 
the  foundation-stone  of  the  present  College  was  laid 
on  the  lovely  hill  of  Rumili  Hissar,  where  still  stand  the 
great  towers  of  "the  Castle  of  Europe,"  which  Moham- 
med II.  built  the  year  before  the  capture  of  Con- 
stantinople in  the  form  of  the  Arabic  letters  of  his  name, 
and  where  an  earlier  Emperor,  Darius,  watched  his 
legions  cross  from  Asia.  No  more  appropriate  spot 
could  have  been  chosen  for  the  site  of  an  institution 
intended  to  free  Turkey  from  darkness  and  ignorance, 
and  from  no  part  of  the  Bosporus — not  even  from  the 
"  Giant's  Mountain  "  itself — is  there  a  lovelier  view  of 
that  river-like  strait  which  separates  Asia  from  Europe. 
From  the  garden  you  can  see  on  a  Friday  afternoon 
the  ca'/qiies,  laden  with  veiled  women,  on  their  way  to  the 
"  Sweet  Waters  of  Asia "  opposite,  and  every  day  the 
scene  is  enlivened  by  the  large  Black  Sea  steamers  and 
the  smaller  craft  which  ply  on  the  Bosporus.  Mr. 
Robert  provided  all  the  funds  for  the  College  till  his 
death  in  1878 — the  memorable  year  which  witnessed 
the  creation  of  that  autonomous  Bulgaria  towards  which 
he  had  indirectlv  contributed  so  much  by  his  generous 
philanthropy. 

For  it  was  to  Robert  College  that  the  newly  liberated 
country  looked  for  the  young  men  who  were  to  be  its 
future  officials,  and  it  was  largely,  thanks  to  this  in- 
stitution, that  Bulgaria,  after  nearly  live  centuries  of 
Turkish  rule,  was  able  to  take  a  place  at  once  among 
the  ranks  of  self-governing  states.  I  have  before  me  a 
complete  list  of  all  those  who  have  graduated  at  the 
College,  and  it  is  surprising  to  observe  how  many  of 
them  are  holding  high  office  in  Bulgaria.  To  begin 
with,  the  best  known  of  all.  Dr.  Constantine  Sto'iloff, 
the   present    Bulgarian    Prime    Minister,  was  a  member 

414 


in   the   Near   East 

of  the  class  of  1871,  in  which  he  had  for  a  colleague 
M.  Panaretoff,  who  was  at  one  time  special  Envoy  of 
Bulgaria  in  England,  and  is  now  Professor  of  the 
Bulgarian  language  and  literature  at  the  College. 
Nearly  all  the  judges,  editors,  and  schoolmasters  of  the 
Principality  were  trained  within  these  walls,  and  it  has 
even  been  said  with  pardonable  exaggeration  that 
"  Robert  College  made  Bulgaria."  But  the  College  is 
not  for  Bulgarians  alone.  Manv  Armenians  have  been 
educated  there,  and  among  the  recent  pupils  are  even 
four  Turks  from  Constantinople,  as  well  as  Roumanian, 
Greek,  British,  French,  Austrian,  and  German  subjects. 
The  Sultan,  however,  who  does  not  love  the  College, 
attributes  to  it  all  sorts  of  revolutionary  propaganda, 
of  which  it  is  absolutely  innocent,  and  prevents  Turks  of 
good  position  from  sending  their  sons  there  for  fear  lest 
they  should  become  too  liberal  in  their  views.  Instances 
have  been  known  in  which  Turkish  pupils  have  been 
entered  at  the  College  one  day  and  withdrawn — in  con- 
sequence of  His  Majesty's  displeasure — the  next. 

On  the  famous  night  of  the  massacres  of  August  26, 
1896,  a  partv  of  twenty  Turkish  soldiers  demanded 
admission  on  the  plea  that  they  came  to  guard  the  place 
by  the  Sultan's  orders.  The  Principal,  who  was  in  bed  at 
the  time,  anxious  for  the  safety  of  the  Armenians  who 
were  employed  in  the  laundry,  told  his  Montenegrin  gate- 
keeper to  keep  the  soldiers  parleying  outside  to  gain 
time.  The  porter  accordingly  told  the  soldiers  that  as  his 
Tchclcbi,  or  master,  had  given  the  place  into  his  charge  he 
could  not  give  it  up  to  any  one  else  till  the  morning, 
?.nd  accordingly  kept  them  out  all  night.  Next  day  the 
soldiers  entered,  and  remained  quartered  in  one  of  the 
schoolrooms  till  the  following  January. 

The  curriculum  includes  such  varied  subjects  as 
philosophy,  political  economy  and  logic,  natural  science, 

415 


Travels  and   Politics 

mathematics  ;   history,  both  Oriental  and  general  ;    liter- 
ature, rhetoric,  Armenian,    Bulgarian,   Turkish,    French, 
German  ;    Greek,    ancient    and     modern  ;    music,    and 
drawhig.     A  special  study  is  made  of  English,  which  is 
the  common    language    of   instruction,    and    under    the 
guidance  of  Professor  Alexander  Van  Millingen,  the  well- 
known  historical  scholar,  English  history  and  literature 
are  taught.     Naturally,  a  knowledge  of  our  constitutional 
development  does  not  tend  to  make  the  students  regard 
the    despotic   rule    of   the    Sultan    as    the    highest    form 
of  human  government.     The  use  of  English  in  the  class- 
rooms has  had  the  great  practical  advantage  of  filling 
even  remote  places  in  the  Balkans  with  men  who  have 
learned  how  to  speak  the  most  widespread  language  of 
the  world.      Indeed,  Robert  College  has  furnished  more 
than    one    English    firm    with    managers,    educated    at 
Rumili  Hissar.      Where,  perhaps,  something  remains  to 
be   done,   is   in  the  physical  department.       There  is  an 
admirable  gymnasium,  and  baseball  has  been  acclimatised 
on  the  shores  of  the  Bosporus,  but  as  yet  the  strenuous 
athleticism   of    our   great    public    schools    has  not   been 
transplanted   there.      But  the   students   possess  a   good 
physique,  and  the   Bulgarians  especially  are  strong  and 
wiry.     Deportment  is  not  forgotten,  and  religious  instruc- 
tion is  imparted  upon  an  unsectarian  basis.     Here  Greeks 
and    Bulgarians,    English    and    French,    Germans    and 
Roumanians  meet  on  a  common  ground.     All  students 
attend  morning  prayer  every  day,  and  on  Sunday  there 
are  morning  and  evening  services  for  the  boarders  and  an 
afternoon  Bible  class.      Debating  and  other  societies  are 
encouraged,  and,  in  short,  a  liberal  education  is  given  to 
all-comers  irrespective  of  race  or  creed.     The  whole  cost 
of  board  and  tuition  is  only  44  Turkish  lims,  or  just  under 
;^40  a  year,  and  tuition  alone  costs  only  10  lims,  or  £g 
per  annum.     The  collegiate  year  begins  in  the  middle  of 

416 


in   the   Near   East 

September  and  closes,  as  a  rule,  on  the  last  Wednesday  in 
June,  when  the  "  Commencement "  takes  place,  orations 
are  delivered  by  the  graduating  class,  and  prizes  and 
diplomas  are  distributed.  A  few  scholarships  have  been 
founded  by  Americans,  and  it  is  hoped  that  more  will  be 
done  in  this  direction.  Certainly  the  College,  which  has 
educated  during  its  35  .years  of  existence  nearly  6000 
students,  has  fully  justified  the  expectations  of  its  founder 
and  his  colleagues.  Every  year  now  it  contains  over  200 
pupils,  whose  ages  vary  from  15  in  the  preparatory 
department  to  a  little  over  19  in  the  senior  class.  Those 
who  have  taken  the  full  course  and  passed  all  the 
necessary  examinations  receive  the  degree  of  B.A.,  while 
that  of  M.A.  is  reserved  for  graduates  who  have  gained 
special  distinction  in  literature  in  after  life.  The  buildings 
of  the  College  are  mainly  two — Hamlin  Hall,  which 
contains  most  of  the  class-rooms,  accommodation  for  175 
boarders,  and  the  rooms  of  the  tutors,  and  Science  Hall, 
inaugurated  six  years  ago,  which  serves  as  a  museum, 
library,  and  reading-room,  as  well  as  a  place  for  religious 
services  and  public  meetings.  Under  the  guidance  of 
Mrs.  Washburn,  I  inspected  both  these  buildings,  and 
found  that  they  could  challenge  comparison  with  any  of 
our  great  educational  establishments  at  home.  The 
library,  which  contains  over  6000  volumes,  struck  me  as 
selected  with  much  judgment,  and  specially  interesting  to 
the  visitor  is  the  complete  collection  of  hshes  found  in  the 
Bosporus,  from  the  huge  tunny,  the  playful  porpoise,  and 
the  quaint  sword-fish,  down  to  the  far-famed  lobsters  of 
Rumili  Hissar  and  the  loiifer,  a  kind  of  herring  dear  to  the 
amateur  anglers  of  these  waters.  One  owl  in  the  collec- 
tion of  birds  is  practically  priceless,  as  it  is  one  of  the  few 
specimens  of  this  particular  kind  extant.  So  that  all  the 
requisites  of  a  sound  literary  and  scientific  training  may 
be  found  within  sight  of  Constantinople. 

417  2E 


Travels  and  Politics  in  the  Near  East 

Robert  College  does  not  represent  all  that  has  been 
done  for  the  cause  of  education  here.  At  Scutari,  across 
the  Bosporus,  there  is  an  American  College  for  girls, 
whose  training  in  Turkey  is  even  more  backward  than 
that  of  the  men.  But  among  the  Turkish  ladies,  as  dis- 
tinct from  the  Armenians,  Greeks,  or  Bulgarians,  nothing 
at  all  can  be  effected,  owing  to  the  harem  system.  True, 
some  of  the  more  enlightened  of  the  Turks'  wives  know 
enough  French  to  read  Zola  or  Flaubert,  and  have  be- 
come so  far  modernised  as  to  smoke  cigarettes  instead  of 
cJiibi'iks.  But  the  position  of  women  here  is  not  likely 
to  be  altered  much  in  our  time,  if  at  all.  Yet  the  main- 
tenance of  these  large  harems  has  indirectly  a  very  bad 
effect  on  the  administration  of  the  country,  because  it 
mvolves  the  men  in  great  expense,  and  they  are  accord- 
ingly forced  to  resort  to  dubious  devices  in  order  to  raise 
money.  As  far  as  veiling  goes,  the  Turkish  women  are, 
indeed,  becoming  much  more  emancipated,  and  even  the 
hequtnt  I mdt's  of  the  Sultan  on  this  subject  have  not  pro- 
duced much  effect  upon  refractory  womankind.  P'or 
here,  as  in  Western  Europe,  a  pretty  woman  likes  to  be 
seen  ;  while  a  plain  one  does  not  mind  being  veiled, 
especially  if  she  has  nice  hands.  To  the  utter  dulness  of 
harem  life  every  lady  who  has  seen  it  bears  witness.  The 
inmates  have  no  ideas,  the  atmosphere  is  bad,  the  sur- 
roundings not  always  pleasant.  Possibly  the  intense 
curiosity  with  which  the  prisoners  of  the  harems  regard 
their  European  sisters  may  lead  some  day  to  a  desire  to 
imitate  some  of  their  customs. 

Whoever  wishes  to  see  Turkish  administration  at  its 
best  let  him  go  to  Brusa,  the  first  capital  of  the  Osmanli 
Sultans,  and,  according  to  some  sanguine  persons,  the 
future  seat  of  the  Ottoman  Government  whenever  it  shall 
have  been  driven,  "  bag  and  baggage,"  back  into  Asia. 
The  story  is  told  of  a  Turkish  Governor  of  Brusa  who, 

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Travels  and   Politics 

when  asked  why  he  was  doing  so  much  to  improve  the 
streets  of  that  town,  repHed,  witli  a  sardonic  smile,  "  I  am 
making  everything  ready  for  the  Sultan  when  he  is  turned 
out  of  Constantinople."  Certainly,  in  point  of  cleanliness 
and  order,  Brusa  compares  most  favourably  with  the  city 
of  Constantine.  There  are  fewer  ruts  in  the  main  streets, 
and  a  general  air  of  brightness  and  liveliness  about  the 
place  which  Constantinople  lacks.  The  Turks,  too,  seem 
much  more  friendly  to  the  "  dog  of  an  unbeliever "  at 
Brusa  than  they  are  in  the  more  famous  resort  of  tourists 
on  the  Bosporus.  When  I  visited  the  mosques  of 
Stambul,  the  scowling  priests,  who  dogged  my  footsteps 
all  the  time,  looked  as  if  they  would  have  dearly  liked  to 
stick  a  dagger  into  my  back.  Indeed,  in  one  case  I  only 
obtained  admission  owing  to  the  polite  fiction  of  my 
guide  that  I  was  a  German,  and  therefore  a  subject  of  the 
one  European  Government  which  is  at  present  in  favour 
in  Turkey.  But  in  Briisa  it  has  been  quite  otherwise. 
There  the  guardians  of  the  mosques  and  tombs  invite  the 
Western  traveller  to  enter,  and  seem  proud  to  show  off 
the  sacred  buildings  committed  to  their  charge,  with 
all  the  objects  of  interest  which  they  contain.  In  the 
"  Green  Mosque,"  for  instance,  the  priest  asked  me  with 
conscious  pride  whether  any  such  exquisite  work  as  that 
existed  in  Great  Britain.  In  fact,  religious  and  social 
fanaticism  is  much  less  apparent  in  Briisa  than  at  Con- 
stantinople. Although  the  population  of  the  former  place 
is  very  mixed,  and  contains  a  large  number  of  Greeks  and 
Armenians,  as  well  as  genuine  Turks,  there  were  no  mas- 
sacres there  such  as  those  which  disgraced  the  capital  two 
years  ago.  When  the  disturbances  occurred  at  Constanti- 
nople, and  a  similar  outbreak  was  feared  at  Brusa,  the 
Governor  at  once  made  it  known  that  if  a  single  Christian 
in  Brusa  were  murdered  he  would  shoot  ten  Mussulmans. 
This   announcement    had    the    desired   effect,  and    not   a 

420 


in   the   Near   East 

single  Christian  in  Brusa  was  injured.  Naturally,  the 
Governor  is  very  popular  with  the  Christians  of  the  town, 
and  as  the  trade  of  the  place  is  largely  in  their  hands  it 
flourishes  exceedingly.  But  in  this  respect  the  7y///  is  only 
carrying  out  the  traditions  of  his  predecessors,  who  have 
all  contributed  towards  making  this  j'/7c7\'t'/  the  model  pro- 
vince of  the  Turkish  Empire.  As  you  traverse  in  the  rail- 
way the  country  between  the  little  seaport  of  Mudania 
on  the  Marmara  and  the  city  of  Brusa  you  notice  at  once 
that  here,  at  least,  the  Turkish  official  has  not  brought 
misery  and  desolation  in  his  train.  Here  you  might  be  in 
Southern  Europe.  On  either  side  a  rich  and  fertile  land 
stretches  out  before  you,  a  land  of  wine  and  olives,  culti- 
vated by  a  bright  and  cheerful  peasantry,  who  greet  the 
train  as  it  slowly  turns  and  turns  on  its  way  up  the  hillside. 
If  Turkey  were  only  all  like  this  there  might  yet  be  some 
hope  for  it;  but,  just  as  one  swallow  does  not  make  a 
summer,  so  one  Brusa  does  not  make  a  prosperous 
Empire.  Yet  there,  at  any  rate,  one  can  realise  what  the 
race  of  Osman  was  in  the  far-away  days  of  its  strength, 
before  its  faculties  as  a  governing  race  were  sapped  and 
undermined  and   dwindled  awav. 

By  a  curious  accident,  this  inland  town  of  Asia  Minor 
possesses  what  is  rare  indeed  in  the  Turkish  provinces — a 
European  hotel.  So  here,  and  at  the  neighbouring  village 
of  Chekirgeh,  or  "the  locust,"  where  there  are  iron  and 
sulphur  baths,  you  have  quite  a  fashionable  society — 
smartly  dressed  Armenian  ladies  and  fluent  Greeks — 
chattering  French  with  the  same  facility  as  their  native 
languages  ;  and  I  found  there  a  real  live  literary  lion, 
in  the  person  of  Paul  Lindau,  the  German  novelist, 
w'hose  brother,  an  official  at  Constantinople,  has  published 
a  yellow-backed  volume  of  "  Turkish  Stories."  The  beau 
uionde  of  Brusa  bowed  down  in  homage  before  this 
eminent   man   of  letters,  who  held   quite   a  Court   ever}^ 

421 


Travels   and   Politics 

evening.  The  German  Consul  was  at  his  disposition  from 
morn  till  dewy  eve — and  the  evenings  there  are  very  dewy 
— and  the  Consul's  cavass,  a  fine  stalwart  Circassian,  was 
on  continual  duty  in  the  hotel  garden.  Herr  Lindau  com- 
plained to  me  that  too  much  was  done  for  his  amusement ; 
there  was  too  much  to  see  for  a  lazy  man.  And,  indeed, 
of  *'  sights  "  Brusa  possesses  sufficient  to  satisfy  the  appe- 
tite of  the  most  energetic  Cook's  tourist  that  ever  went 
on  a  personally-conducted  excursion.  According  to  the 
local  saying,  Brusa  "  has  a  mosque  and  a  walk  for  every 
day  of  the  year."  Of  the  walks  it  is  sufficient  to  say  that 
the  slopes  of  Mount  Olympus,  which  rises  superbly  above 
the  town  to  the  altitude  of  nearly  8,000  feet,  afford  many  a 
pleasant  ramble,  while  in  the  city  itself  there  are  fascinating 
streets  covered  with  trellised  vines  and  bright  with  every 
colour  and  costume  of  the  gorgeous  East.  The  bazar  at 
Brusa  is  a  ladies'  paradise,  for  there  may  be  bought  on 
weekdays — for  on  Sunday  it  is  practically  closed — those 
silken  and  gauze-like  fabrics  which  are  the  speciality  of 
the  place.  Or,  if  the  lady  be  of  a  practical,  housewifely 
mind,  she  may  purchase  there,  after  the  usual  bargaining, 
those  Brusa  towels  which  are  the  delight  of  the  British 
bathroom.  But  the  great  glory  of  Brusa  is  the  famous 
Ycsliil  Jaini,  or  "Green  Mosque,"  which  ranks  above  all 
other  Turkish  mosques  in  beauty  of  workmanship  and 
design.  The  green  Persian  tiles,  with  which  a  large  por- 
tion of  the  interior  is  lined,  are  most  elaborate,  and  the 
marble  carving  of  the  doorway  and  the  windows  forms 
an  admirable  ornament,  which  Santa  Sophia  in  all  its 
splendour  cannot  surpass.  Adjoining  the  "  Green 
Mosque"  is  the  tomb  of  Mohammed  I.,  its  founder,  also 
covered  with  green  tiles,  within  which  rest  the  remains  of 
that  Sultan,  while  several  more  of  Brusa's  early  sovereigns 
are  buried  in  a  lovely  spot,  shaded  by  huge  plane  trees,  in 
another  quarter  of  the  Imperial  city.     All  these  and  the 

422 


in  the  Near  East 

"Great  Mosque  "  with  its  numerous  cupolas  bear  silent 
testimony  to  Brusa's  golden  age,  when  Orkhan,  the  son 
of  Osman,  had  captured  it  after  a  ten  years'  siege,  and  had 
made  it  the  chosen  home  of  poets  and  men  of  learning  no 
less  than  the  residence  of  the  Emperor.  But  Brusa  had 
only  a  comparatively  short  enjoyment  of  that  privilege. 
Adrianople  soon  became  the  Turkish  capital,  and,  when 
in  1453  Mohammed  II.  conquered  Constantinople,  the 
ancient  Bithynian  city,  where  once  Hannibal  had  waited 
the  bidding  and  implored  the  good  offices  of  its  king  in 
his  struggle  against  the  might  of  Rome,  became  a  mere 
provincial  town. 

Brusa  has  been  not  inaptly  compared,  in  beauty  of 
situation,  with  Malvern,  and  it  might  also  be  likened  in 
that  respect  to  Sorrento.  As  in  the  Italian  town,  so  here, 
deep  ravines  intersect  the  buildings,  and  quaint  bridges 
span  the  "blue  "  water,  as  it  rushes  down  the  folds  of  the 
mountains.  On  one  of  the  bridges  quaint  Turkish  houses 
cluster  close  together,  giving  a  peculiarly  picturesque 
aspect  to  the  scene.  As  at  Malvern,  the  houses  are  built 
upon  the  flanks  of  the  hill,  and  from  the  citadel  the  eye 
commands  a  prospect  over  the  valley  of  the  Nilufer,  as 
rich  as  that  which  extends  from  the  terraces  of  the  English 
health-resort  down  to  the  banks  of  the  Severn.  But  Brusa 
possesses  in  the  snow-clad  Olympus  a  neighbour  more 
majestic  than  the  Beacon  and  not  less  dangerous  than 
Vesuvius.  Dangerous  alike  from  natural  and  from  arti- 
ficial causes,  for  the  brigands  of  the  "Monk's  Mountain," 
as  the  Turks  call  it,  have  a  bad  reputation,  while  its  neigh- 
bourhood is  marked  with  terrible  earthquakes,  which  have 
more  than  once  shaken  down  the  houses  and  injured  the 
mosques  of  Brusa.  In  the  main  street  you  may  still  see 
the  ruins  of  wooden  dwellings,  crushed  to  splinters  by  the 
rocks  from  above,  for  the  Turk,  even  though  he  be  more 
enlightened  here  than  elsewhere,  never  clears  away  any 

423 


Travels  and   Politics 

rubbish  or  ruins  that  have  once  fallen.  That  would  be 
waste  of  energy. 

The  railways  have  quite  wakened  up  this  corner  of 
Asia  Minor  to  intercourse  with  the  great  world  outside. 
The  silk  industry  has  thus  received  a  new  impetus,  and 
the  cult  of  the  silkworm  is  more  general  than  ever  there. 
Yet,  with  all  its  superior  cleanliness  and  modern  facilities 
of  locomotion,  the  old  capital  of  Orkhan  has  not  lost  its 
Oriental  character.  It  is,  at  this  stage  of  its  history,  an 
excellent  example  of  what  Turkey  might  be  under  a  wise 
government.  I  had  an  admirable  opportunity  of  wit- 
nessing the  genuine  popularity  of  one  of  the  officials  of 
the  place,  the  Commissioner  of  the  Public  Debt,  who 
was  staying  at  the  hotel,  and  travelled  with  me  back  to 
Constantinople.  His  Excellency — a  jovial,  elderly  gentle- 
man— was  a  great  favourite  with  the  Europeans,  who 
treated  him  very  much  as  one  of  themselves,  and  at  the 
same  time  was  heartily  greeted  by  the  natives  wherever  he 
appeared.  Every  one  turned  up  at  the  station  to  wish  him 
a  good  journey  and  a  safe  return  ;  and  on  the  steamer  he 
was  the  centre  of  an  admiring  group  of  Armenian  ladies. 
One  is  tempted  to  say  of  Ottoman  offtcials — 0  si  sic  oiniics  ! 
Indeed,  it  is  with  regret  that  one  returns  to  the  corrupt 
administration  of  the  present  Turkish  capital  after  this 
experience  of  the  old.  Briisa  is,  indeed,  an  administrative 
oasis  in  this  arid  desert  of  political  incapacity  and  intrigue. 

Of  all  European  capitals,  Constantinople  has  least  social 
life.  From  the  nature  of  the  case,  the  absence  of  all 
female  society  among  the  Mussulmans  renders  it  impos- 
sible for  them  to  entertain.  The  Europeans  live  for  the 
most  part  at  great  distances  from  the  centre,  and  the 
means  of  communication  are  so  bad  that  visiting, 
especially  at  night,  is  a  toil  rather  than  a  pleasure.  No 
human  being  would  drive  through  the  streets  unless 
compelled  to  do  so,  for  the  holes  in  even  the  principal 

424 


in   the   Near   East 

thoroughfares  niflict  the  keenest  tortui-e  upon  even  robust 
nerves.  As  the  Turkisli  driver  usually  insists  upon  going 
at  full  speed  one  is  nearly  jolted  out  of  one's  seat  at  every 
moment.  I  shall  never  forget  two  experiences  of  this 
kind.  On  one  occasion  we  attempted  to  drive  round  the 
walls,  and  expected  at  every  moment  to  break  our  necks  ; 
on  the  other  we  descended  from  the  heights  of  Bulgarlu 
at  a  pace  and  at  an  angle  which  threatened  instant  extinc- 
tion. Until  I  had  seen  Constantinople  I  always  imagined 
Belgrade  to  be  the  worst  paved  capital  in  the  East,  but  I 
now  confess  that  the  Servians  have  greatly  improved  upon 
the  road-building  of  their  former  Turkish  masters.  Besides 
Constantinople  possesses  a  further  impediment  to  traffic 
in  the  shape  of  the  dogs  which  encumber  every  street  and 
lie  in  every  hole  in  the  pavement.  For  the  pedestrian  at 
night  it  is  a  matter  of  considerable  difficulty  to  avoid 
treading  upon  whole  colonies  of  puppies  deposited  by 
their  mothers  in  every  available  spot.  No  power,  not 
even  that  of  a  former  Sultan,  has  been  able  to  abolish 
the  Constantinople  dog.  When  Abdul  Mejid  banished 
them  all  to  one  of  the  islands  in  the  Marmara  he  was 
compelled  by  public  opinion  to  bring  them  back  to  the 
city.  The  severe  winters  lead  to  a  survival  of  the  fittest, 
but  even  so  their  numbers  are  only  slightly  diminished. 
While  by  day  they  are  only  encumbrances  to  the  traffic, 
by  night  they  also  render  sleep  most  difficult.  It  has 
been  our  fate  to  reside  at  the  point  where  the  territories 
of  two  canine  nations  met — for,  as  every  one  knows,  the 
Constantinople  dogs  have  districts  of  their  own  which 
they  unite  in  defending  against  the  canine  denizens  of 
other  quarters.  But  as  is  natural  in  these  days  of  colonial 
expansion,  the  dogs  of  the  less  favoured  districts  are 
desirous  to  extend  their  spheres  of  influence.  The  most 
ferocious  battles  then  take  place  upon  the  frontier  until 
the  invaders  have  been  driven  off".    And  even  if  for  a  time 

425 


Travels  and  Politics 

some  canine  leader  ordains  the  peace,  the  night  watch- 
man effectually  prevents  one's  slumber.  This  function- 
ary's practice  of  tapping  with  his  staff  upon  the  pavement 
has  the  double  effect  of  keeping  the  householder  awake 
and  giving  the  housebreaker  time  to  get  out  of  the  way. 
The  actions  of  this  individual  are  somewhat  erratic.  Some- 
times he  stops  away  altogether  and  then  demands  bakshish 
for  the  neglect  of  his  duties ;  at  others,  when  sleepless 
residents  offer  him  baksliish  in  order  that  he  may  stop 
away,  he  pockets  the  piastres  and  knocks  more  loudly 
than  ever.  It  is  said  that  he  marks  the  hours  by  the 
number  of  knocks  he  gives  with  his  stick,  but  in  our 
experience  we  have  found  that  he  rathei-  resembled  a 
clockmaker  summoned  to  wind  up  the  clocks  who 
makes  them  sound  one  hour  after  the  other  in  rapid 
succession. 

No  one  can  live  in  comfort  in  Constantinople  without 
a  cavass,  and  it  is  the  object  of  every  one  to  secure  the 
services  of  a  gigantic  Montenegrin  or  Bocchcsc  for  this 
purpose.  It  would  be  difficult  to  find  anywhere  a  more 
imposing  figure  than  the  Montenegrin  cavass  of  the 
British  Embassy,  and  these  servants  are  as  honest  and 
faithful  as  they  are  handsome.  But  they  have  "the 
defects  of  their  qualities."  They  carry  their  devotion  to 
their  employers  to  such  a  length  that  they  regard  it  as  a 
personal  insult  to  be  dismissed,  and  sometimes  attack 
their  masters  for  having  dismissed  them.  Besides,  if  they 
have  to  resign  on  account  of  ill-health,  they  expect  their 
brothers  or  cousins  to  be  taken  on  in  their  place  as  a 
matter  of  course.  Utterly  impervious  to  new  ideas,  they 
are  the  most  conservative  of  men.  Thus,  I  once  heard  a 
Montenegrin  expostulate  with  some  one  who  wanted  to 
eat  a  tortoise,  not  because  the  animal  was  unwholesome, 
but  because  "  it  came  straight  from  hell." 

Just  as  Baron   Haussmann  reconstructed  Paris,  so  the 

426 


in   the   Near   East 

German  Emperor  has  been  unconsciously  doing  some- 
thing to  improve  the  streets  of  Constantinople.  When  it 
became  known  that  the  Sultan's  "  only  friend  "  proposed 
to  re-visit  the  Turkish  capital,  it  was  resolved  to  widen 
the  streets  through  which  the  Kaiser  would  be  likely  to 
pass.  No  theories  about  compensation  trouble  the  official 
mind  of  Constantinople  when  once  it  has  resolved  upon 
street  improvement.  In  London  we  hesitate  to  widen  the 
Strand  because  of  the  expense  involved  in  purchasing 
the  houses  which  it  would  be  necessary  to  pull  down. 
The  Turks,  on  the  other  hand,  resort  to  one  of  those 
fortunate  accidents  which  in  Eastern  countries  frequently 
remove  objectionable  persons  or  buildings  at  the  most 
convenient  moment.  We  witnessed  an  instance  of  this 
in  the  Grande  Rue  de  Pera.  A  house  which  projected 
into  the  street  and  impeded  the  praiseworthy  desire  of  the 
authorities  to  widen  the  main  thoroughfare  of  the  city, 
was  one  night  found  in  a  blaze.  Next  morning  as 
we  were  passing  the  ruined  building  a  Turkish  officer 
remarked,  in  our  hearing,  in  French  :  ''  On  a  hicii  faii  dc 
I'iiiccndier."  This  system  is  further  facilitated  by  the  fact 
that  the  firemen  stationed  on  the  Galata  Tower  or  at 
Kandilli  have  to  obtain  permission  from  Yildiz  Kiosk 
before  firing  the  signal.  A  great  deal  of  time  is  thus 
lost,  and  the  Turkish  fire-brigade  arrives  too  late.  If  the 
European  brigade — for  that  also  exists — shows  too  much 
zeal  in  the  service,  its  attention  is  usually  diverted  to  the 
opposite  house.  Sometimes  too,  where  a  genuine  tire 
occurs,  the  Turkish  firemen  spend  so  much  time  in 
bargaining  with  the  people,  whose  property  they  have 
come  to  save,  that  there  is  nothing  left  to  save  at  all.  In 
one  case,  where  a  fire  occurred  at  a  village  in  the  winter, 
the  village  was  burnt  and  many  lives  lost  by  cold  and 
privation  owing  to  this  chaffering. '  But  whether  the  fire 
be  genuine  or  not,  the  cry  of  "  YaiigJicii  var"  with  which 

427 


Travels  and   Politics 

the  firemen  go  through  the  streets  naturally  attracts  the 
worst  elements  of  the  population,  who  seize  this  oppor- 
tunity for  plunder  and  destruction.  At  Smyrna,  where 
I  witnessed  a  large  conflagration,  they  managed  things 
rather  better,  but  even  there  1  noticed  at  the  fire-station, 
where  I  was  at  the  time,  that  the  alarm-guns  had  to  be 
cleaned  at  the  critical  moment  when  they  ought  to  have 
been  fired,  so  that  a  great  delay  was  caused. 

The  lack  of  amusements,  for  there  is  no  theatre  or 
opera,  makes  Constantinople  an  undesirable  place  of 
residence.  In  fact  the  only  persons  who  have  a  tolerably 
good  time  there  are  those  connected  with  Embassies. 
Even  they,  with  all  the  advantages  of  their  position,  find 
the  place  compares  badly  with  other  capitals.  As  one  of 
them  remarked  to  me,  "  In  Constantinople  one  is  never 
finished  with  a  piece  of  business.  What  is  simple  else- 
where, is  complex  here.  Do  what  you  may,  any  matter 
which  you  consider  settled  is  sure  to  return  to  you." 
Moreover,  Constantinople  has  been  the  grave  of  many 
diplomatic  reputations,  and  an  old  resident  who  has 
known  thirteen  British  Ambassadors  once  told  me,  that 
the  only  one  of  them  who  was  really  successful  was  the 
one  who  confined  his  diplomatic  notes  to  the  Porte  within 
the  space  of  four  lines,  and  always  began  them  with  the 
formula,  "The  British  Ambassador  requires." 

A  friend  of  mine,  who  has  been  for  many  years  a 
householder  in  Constantinople,  told  me  his  experience  of 
taking  a  house  there  which  may  interest  the  British 
occupier.  The  latter  is  apt  to  imagine  himself  a  much 
suffering  individual,  but  his  wrongs  are  nothing  to  those 
of  his  fellows  in  Turkey.  For  in  Turkey  there  is  no 
regular  system  of  levying  inhabited  house-duty,  but 
whenever  the  householder  wishes  to  make  any  repairs  he 
has  to  obtain  official  permission  to  do  so,  and  this 
permission  is  only  granted  after  payment  of  all  arrears  of 

428 


in   the    Near   East 

taxation  clue  upon  the  house.  As  there  is  in  Turkish  law 
no  statute  of  hniitation,  the  unfortunate  householder 
is  held  liable,  not  only  for  his  own,  but  for  his  pre- 
decessors' arrears  of  taxation,  and  in  an  instance  which 
has  come  under  my  notice  no  less  than  twenty-three  years 
of  taxes  had  to  be  paid  at  once  by  a  certain  gentleman 
who  desired  to  repair  his  abode  !  The  natural  result  is 
that  houses,  which  are  very  expensive  in  Constantinople, 
are  allowed  to  fall  into  a  most  ruinous  state,  because 
a  direct  incentive  is  thus  given  to  the  householders  to 
refrain  from  making  any  alterations.  Needless  to  add,  the 
utmost  uncertainty  prevails  as  to  the  annual  yield  of  the 
tax  upon  houses,  and  anything  like  our  Chancellor  of 
the  Exchequer's  accurate  forecast  of  the  house-duty  is 
impossible.  Even  to  repair  the  road  in  front  of  a  house 
requires  a  special  permit,  though  the  householder  has  to 
do  the  repairs  at  his  own  cost.  If  he  expostulates  with  the 
local  authorities,  he  is  told  that  "all  the  rates  have  been 
sent  to  the  Palace." 

But  all  these  inconveniences  sink  into  insignificance 
beside  the  horrors  of  keeping  Turkish  time.  The  Turks 
set  their  watches  every  day,  and  sunset,  whatever  hour  it 
mav  be  by  our  reckoning,  is  counted  as  twelve  o'clock, 
and  the  other  hours  calculated  from  it.  Thus,  if  it  is 
half-past  nine  by  a  "European"  watch,  the  Turkish 
clocks  point  to  two.  As  both  systems  prevail  in  Turkey, 
it  is  necessary  to  have  two  watches,  or  else  a  movable 
watchglass  with  a  second  set  of  figures  on  it.  At  home 
convicts  are  made  to  "  do  time"  ;  a  much  harder  punish- 
ment would  be  to  make  them  keep  Turkish  time  for  a 
month. 

But  there  is  a  bright  side  to  the  picture.  Business  men, 
overburdened  with  the  rates  and  taxes  of  Western  Europe, 
tell  me  that  they  find  it  easier  to  make  profits  under  the 
uncertain  Turkish  system.     In  the  summer,  too,  suburban 

429 


Travels  and   Politics 

life,  on  the  Bosporus,  or  at  one  of  the  other  pleasure 
resorts  near  Constantinople,  possesses  great  attractions. 
Diplomatic  society  selects  Therapia  or  Buyukdereh  for 
its  villcgiatnre,  and  the  lack  of  hotels  at  all  the  other 
delightful  spots  on  the  Bosporus  secures  those  two 
places  a  monopoly  in  that  direction.  Many  well-to-do 
people  prefer  Prinkipo,  in  spite  of  the  abominable 
service  of  steamers.  On  one  occasion,  a  deputation 
of  European  ladies,  anxious  for  the  safety  of  their  hus- 
bands, threatened  to  invade  the  Sultan's  presence,  in 
order  to  bring  before  his  Majesty  the  dangers  of  the 
rickety  old  boats  which  ply  between  the  city  and  the 
intermediate  stations  on  the  way  to  Prinkipo.  Terri- 
fied at  this  prospect,  the  Sultan  at  once  promised  to  buy 
two  new  boats  in  England  ;  but  this  promise  was  not 
altogether  reassuring,  for  residents  in  Constantinople 
remember  that  when  two  second-hand  British  steamers 
were  previously  ordered  for  this  service,  both  of  them  were 
so  unseaworthy  that  they  were  forbidden  to  leave  port 
flying  the  British  flag,  and  one  of  them  went  down  on 
the  way  out.  Chancing  to  go  over  to  Prinkipo  on  St. 
George's  Day,  the  principal  Greek  festival  of  the  island, 
we  nearly  shared  a  similar  fate.  Instead  of  putting  on 
extra  boats,  as  is  usual  in  other  countries  at  holiday  times, 
the  steamboat  company  crowded  hundreds  of  excur- 
sionists on  to  a  wretched  old  tub,  until  the  deck  was 
almost  level  with  the  water.  On  arrival,  however,  we  were 
partially  compensated  for  this  experience  by  the  scenes 
round  the  Monastery  of  St.  George.  Here  groups  of 
peasants  from  the  islands  in  the  Marmara,  and  from 
the  Bithvnian  coast,  were  dancing  the  horci  in  the  most 
solemn  fashion.  The  dancers  were  all  men,  who  stood  in 
a  circle  with  a  fiddler  in  the  middle,  while  the  women,  in 
curious  baggv  trousers  of  all  the  colours  of  the  rainbow, 
stood  looking  on.     Prinkipo  has  a  rival  in  Phanaraki,  a 

430 


in   the   Near   East 

place  on  the  Asiatic  coast,  the  home  of  a  considerable 
European  colony  in  summer.  Here  on  Fridays  one  may 
sit    under    the  trees  and  observe  the  mediaeval  and  the 


RUSSIAN    MOXUMEN'T,    SAX    STEFAXO. 

(From  a  Photo,  by  Mr.  F.  S.  Cobb.y 

modern  sides  of  Oriental  life  at  the  same  moment — the 
veiled  Turkish  ladies  being  drawn  about  in  long,  creaking 
bullock   waggons,   and   the    smart  Armenian    bicyclists 

431 


Travels   and   Politics   in   the   Near  East 

equally  proud  of  their  European  machines  and  their 
Parisian  French.  San  Stefano,  famous  in  history  as  the 
scene  of  the  abortive  Treaty  and  as  the  nearest  point  to 
Constantinople  which  the  Russians  have  yet  reached, 
possesses  the  advantage  of  direct  railwav  communication 
and  is  prettily  situated  on  the  Marmara.  The  "  Treaty 
house"  is  now,  like  the  Treaty  itself,  a  thing  of  the  past. 
Since  the  last  earthquake  the  ruins  alone  remain  to  remind 
the  passer-by  of  what  promised  to  be  the  most  remark- 
able event  in  the  story  of  the  Balkan  Peninsula.  Out  in 
the  waste  plain  beyond  San  Stefano  the  Russians  have 
erected  a  monument,  the  scaffolding  of  which  was  still  up 
when  we  visited  it,  nominally  to  the  memory  of  their 
soldiers,  but  really  to  commemorate  their  achievement  in 
1878.  At  that  time  every  one  expected  them  in  Con- 
stantinople, and  the  arrangements  for  the  evacuation  had 
actually  been  prepared.  Skobeleff  used  himself  to  go 
regularly  to  Missiri's  Hotel  to  dine,  and  on  one  occasion 
applied  to  a  British  doctor,  still  living,  to  get  one  of  his 
officers  into  the  English  hospital.  The  next  time  that  the 
Russians  get  as  near  to  Constantinople  they  will  probably 
come  to  stay.  A  Turkish  prophecy  says  that  thirty 
Sultans  shall  reign  in  Stambul.  Abdul  Hamid  II.  is  the 
twenty-eighth  of  the  series,  so  that  the  time  for  the  fulfil- 
ment of  the  prediction  is  approaching.  But  threatened 
empires,  like  threatened  men,  have  a  habit  of  living 
longer  than  any  one  expects. 


432 


CHAPTER  XIII 

AN    EXPERIMENT   IN    EMANCIPATION  :    BULGARIA 

FINDING  that  the  direct  line  from  Constantinople  to 
Bulgaria  was  still  interrupted  owing  to  the  floods, 
I  could  only  reach  that  interesting  Balkan  Principality 
by  way  of  the  Black  Sea.  The  Euxine  has  always  had 
a  bad  reputation  for  its  sudden  squalls.  The  ancients 
christened  it  the  "  inhospitable  "  sea,  and  our  own  soldiers 
had  some  terrible  experiences  of  what  it  could  do  during 
the  Crimean  War.  But  I  had  no  choice  in  the  matter,  so 
embarked  on  one  of  the  Russian  steamers  for  Bourgas, 
the  second  of  the  two  ports  of  Bulgaria,  which  I  reached 
after  a  fifteen  hours'  voyage,  and  a  tossing  such  as  the 
English  Channel  itself  could  hardly  have  surpassed. 

It  is  certainly  an  agreeable  contrast,  after  a  tour  in  the 
immediate  dominions  of  the  Sultan,  to  find  oneself  in  a 
country  where  one's  movements  are  not  hindered  by 
absurd  regulations.  In  Bulgaria,  at  any  rate,  whatever 
may  be  the  shortcomings  of  the  Government,  the  traveller 
is  assisted  by  the  ofBcials  and  welcomed  by  the  people. 
There  are  no  special  passports  required  as  in  Turkey  ; 
bakshisli  ceases  to  be  in  constant  demand  ;  and,  above 
all,  there  is  an  admirable  currency,  based  on  the  French 
system,  the  two  denominations  of  which,  the  In'  (or  "lion") 
and  the  stotiiika,  almost  exactly  correspond  in  value  to 
the  French  franc  and  centime.  After  the  filthy  Greek 
paper,  and  the  almost   illegible  Turkish   metal    coinage, 

433  2F 


BULGARIAN   BRIDE. 


Travels  and  Politics  in  the  Near  East 

it  is  a  relief  to  handle  finely  engraved  silver  and  nickel 
pieces,  bearing  the  Bulgarian  lion  rampant  or  the  image 
and  superscription  of  Prince  P'erdinand.  With  such 
a  currency  one  knows  at  once  what  one  is  doing ; 
whereas  in  Greece  and  Turkey  it  is  always  a  matter 
of  elaborate  calculation  to  ascertain  exactly  how 
much  one  is  really  paying  for  anv  article  purchased. 
The  newcomer  in  Bulgaria  notices,  too,  at  once  the 
superior  physique  of  the  officers  and  soldiers  as  compared 
with  the  appearance  of  Greek  military  men.  The 
Greeks  are  badly  turned  out,  and  the  men  always  struck 
me  as  underfed  ;  but  the  Bulgarians  look  very  smart  in 
their  white  coats  and  caps,  and  are  a  much  sturdier  race 
than  the  Hellenes.  It  cannot  be  doubted,  as  several 
well-known  Bulgarians  assured  me,  that  if  the  Principality 
had  joined  Greece  in  the  war  against  Turkey  at  the 
moment  v»'hen  Edhem  Pasha  had  reached  the  Thessalian 
frontier,  the  result  would  have  been  otherwise.  For  the 
Bulgarians  could  have  cut  the  Turkish  line  of  com- 
munication between  the  capital  and  the  front  at  Dedea- 
gatch  on  the  ^gean,  and  Edhem's  position  would  then 
have  been  most  critical.  But  the  opportunity,  owing  to 
Russian  pressure  on  Prince  Ferdinand,  was  lost,  and  now 
Bulgaria  finds  too  late  that  she  has  reaped  as  the  reward 
of  her  "  correct  attitude  "  towards  her  suzerain  little  else 
but  promises — the  paper  currency  of  Turkish  politics, 
which  no  wise  statesman  will  accept. 

Bourgas,  though  an  important  outlet  for  the  trade 
of  South  Bulgaria,  and  the  stopping-place  of  a  good 
many  English  steamers,  is  not  a  spot  likely  to  detain  the 
traveller.  Compared  with  the  average  Turkish  town,  it 
is  clean  and  "  European,"  and  the  prefecture,  in  which 
I  had  an  interview  with  the  Mayor,  is  a  new  building 
which  reflects  credit  on  the  Bulgarian  Government. 
The  inn,  too,  though  by  no  means  immaculate,  boasts  a 

435 


Travels  and  Politics 

portrait  of  the  Princess  of  Wales,  and  a  tolerable  restau- 
rant, through  which  the  swallows  kept  flying  as  I  ate  m}' 
meals.  But  the  surroundings  are  dreary,  and  the  two 
large  lagoons  near  the  town  make  a  stay  there  at  mid- 
summer rather  undesirable.  So  1  was  not  long  in 
taking  the  slow  train — a  train  the  slowness  of  which 
exceeds  all  human  imagination — for  Philippopolis,  a 
journey  of  two  hundred  miles,  which  involved  14^  hours 
of  railway  travelling  !  But  even  the  slow  train  has  its 
advantages  when  you  are  desirous  of  studying  the  face 
of  a  country.  As  you  meander  leisurely  along  you  can 
see  for  yourself  what  this  district  produces  and  what  that 
manufactures,  though  manufactures  are  scarce  in  Bul- 
garia. At  the  roadside  stations  you  can  observe  the 
country  folk  in  their  various  costumes,  and  after  a  certain 
amount  of  dawdling  you  become  the  bosom  friend  of 
your  fellow-travellers,  and  talk  to  them  about  their 
country  as  if  you  had  known  them  all  their  lives.  I  had 
no  conception  until  I  made  this  journey  of  the  immense 
damage  that  can  be  wrought  by  the  floods.  As  we 
traversed  mile  after  mile  of  the  vast  Thracian  plain — the 
Eastern  Roumelia  of  the  Berlin  Treaty,  now  completely 
merged  in  the  big  Bulgaria  of  1885 — we  saw  corn  beaten 
flat  by  the  rain  and  rotting  on  the  ground,  vines  soaking 
in  water,  and  maize  washed  clean  out  of  the  earth.  To 
the  unfortunate  peasant — and  Bulgaria  is  par  excellence 
the  "  Peasant  State,"  the  Transvaal  of  the  Balkan  Penin- 
sula— those  storms  mean  ruin.  The  only  creatures  that 
benefit  by  the  floods  are  the  vast  armies  of  water  fowl 
which  are  encamped  all  along  the  low-lying  plains  of 
Thrace.  As  we  passed  by  we  could  see  the  storks  by 
hundreds  standing  in  the  marshes  or  slowly  flapping 
their  huge  wings  and  craning  their  ugly  necks  in  flight. 
But  it  is  at  Philippopolis  that  these  quaint  creatures  are  to 
be  seen  at  their  best.     There,  as  at  Strassburg,  they  build 

436 


in   the   Near   East 

vast  and  roomy  nests  on  the  roofs  of  mosques  or  on 
chimney-stacks,  where  they  feed  their  young  in  motherly- 
fashion  and  pursue  their  other  avocations  absokitely 
unharmed.  For  no  Turk  or  Bulgarian  will  ever  harm  a 
stork,  and  the  chimneys  seem  to  have  been  specially 
prepared  for  the  reception  of  these  birds. 

Philippopolis,  or  Plovdiv,  as  the  Bulgarians  call  it,  is 
certainly  one  of  the  most  picturesque  sites  in  Europe, 
and  well  deserves  the  attention  of  the  travellers  who 
hurry  past  it  in  the  Orient  Express.  You  are  ambling 
along  an  immense  plain,  when  suddenly  you  see  in  front 
of  you,  arising  as  if  by  magic  out  of  the  earth,  seven  hills 
of  granite,  forming  together  an  inverted  7,  or  the  Greek 
letter,  P.  On  three  of  these  hills,  or  tcpc,  as  they  are  locally 
called,  are  grouped  the  red-roofed  houses  of  Philippopolis, 
which  thus  obtained  its  old  Roman  name  of  Trimontium, 
or  "  the  three  mountains."  As  you  stand  on  the  summit 
of  one  of  these  hills  you  see  the  Balkans  and  the  range  of 
Rhodope  bounding  the  horizon  to  north  and  south,  and 
the  city  spread  out  before  you  like  a  map — the  muddy 
Marica  surging  on  its  turbid  course,  the  shining  cupolas 
of  the  Greek  and  Bulgarian  churches,  and  here  and 
there  the  slim  and  graceful  minaret  of  a  mosque,  for 
there  are  still  a  good  number  of  Mussulmans  here, 
although  many  have  emigrated  since  the  union  of  the 
two  Bulgarias,  in  spite  of  the  efforts  of  the  Bulgarian 
Government  to  induce  them  to  stay^  But  here,  the 
Mussulmans  prefer  even  the  inferior  administration  of 
Turkey  to  life  under  the  rule  of  their  old  rayalis.  Some 
years  ago  in  Philippopolis  the  accidental  inroad  of  a 
stray  pig  into  a  mosque  caused  the  total  disuse  of  the 
building  for  an  immense  period,  and  in  a  country  where 
swine  are  so  plentiful  what  may  not  happen  to  shock  the 
feelings  of  the  devout  follower  of  the  Prophet  ?  But  the 
most  curious  feature  of  religious  life  here  is  the  existence 

437 


Travels  and  Politics  in  the  Near  East 

of  a  large  community  of  Bulgarian  Catholics,  who 
inhabit  a  special  quarter  of  the  town,  and  are  the  descen- 
dants of  those  Paulicians  or  Bogomiles  who  played  such 
a  great  part  in  the  mediaeval  history  of  the  Balkan  lands, 
and  have  left  their  mark  all  over  the  Peninsula. 

No  one  can  visit  Philippopolis,  with  its  three  large 
public  gardens — one  the  site  of  the  Exhibition  held  here 
some  time  ago — its  clean  streets,  its  tine  museum  and 
library,  and  its  general  air  of  prosperity,  without  recog- 
nising that  it  has  benefited  greatly  since  the  Turkish  rule 
was  ended  here.  It  is  said,  indeed,  by  some  well-informed 
persons,  that  Eastern  Roumelia  and  its  capital  were  in 
some  material  respects  best  off  under  the  system  of  auto- 
nomy inaugurated  by  the  Berlin  Treaty  of  1878,  and  which 
lasted  down  to  the  union  in  1885.  The  South  Bulgarians 
complain  that  they  have  now  to  contribute  more  money 
for  military  purposes,  while  in  those  days  they  had  only 
a  militia  to  support.  They  say,  too,  that  the  southern 
half  of  the  Principality,  which  is  the  richer  and  more 
fertile — for  South  Bulgaria  is  chiefly  a  land  of  plains, 
North  Bulgaria  largely  a  land  of  mountains — is  somewhat 
neglected  in  the  matter  of  railways.  It  is,  for  instance,  a 
grievance  with  the  rose-growers  at  Kazanlik  that  the  new 
railway  now  in  course  of  construction  from  Sofia  to 
Plevna  and  Trnovo  does  not  pass  that  way.  But,  in 
spite  of  these  things,  the  South  Bulgarians  frankly  confess 
that  their  patriotic  sentiments  far  outweigh  mere  material 
considerations.  They  compare  their  case  with  that  of  the 
Cretans.  Crete  would  be  pecuniarily  better  off  as  an  auto- 
nomous island  than  if  united  to  Greece,  but  still  the 
Cretans  at  present  prefer  to  be  united  with  their  own  flesh 
and  blood,  even  though  the  union  would  add  to  their 
taxes.  So,  also,  the  Bulgarians  of  the  south  are  glad  to 
form  one  State  with  their  brethren  beyond  the  Balkans. 
On    both    sides    of   the    mountains   there    are    the    same 

439 


Travels  and   Politics 

race,  the  same  language,  and  the  same  traditions.  The 
old  Bulgarian  Tsars,  Simeon  and  Peter,  were  Lords  of 
Philippopolis  as  well  as  Trnovo  ;  and  when  the  ancient 
Bulgarian  capital  fell  before  the  Turks  it  was  to  Philippo- 
polis that  the  last  Tsar,  Sisman  ("the  Fat"),  came  to  die.  It 
may  safely  be  asserted  that  Bulgaria  will  remain  one  and 
undivided  ;  it  is  only  a  pity  that  she  cannot  form  a  closer 
union  with  Servia,  either  by  means  of  confederation 
or  otherwise.  But  that  desirable  consummation,  in  the 
opinion  of  those  on  the  spot,  is  still  far  off.  In  the 
very  hotel  where  I  was  stopping  at  Salonica,  a  quarrel 
between  Bulgarians  and  Servians  led  to  a  horrible  murder ; 
and  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  two  languages  are  so  much 
alike,  there  is  little  sympathy  between  these  two  neigh- 
bouring peoples.  Not  in  vain  did  the  Roman  historian 
talk  of  the  iiota  inter  frcitrcs  iiiiniicitia. 

Philippopolis  can  boast  of  quite  a  European  society,  and 
Great  Britain  in  particular  possesses  in  her  Vice-consul, 
Mr.  Wratislaw,  a  representative  whose  kindness  and  hospi- 
tality are  only  equalled  by  his  intimate  knowledge  of  the 
country  and  its  people.  Xor  will  the  English  visitor  find 
that  his  language  is  unknown  in  this  distant  town.  A  fair, 
and  often  a  very  good,  acquaintance  with  English  is  not 
at  all  uncommon  among  educated  Bulgarians,  thanks 
largely  to  Robert  College.  The  one  danger  of  the  educa- 
tional zeal  which  prevails  here  is  that  this  country,  which 
is  pre-eminently  agricultural,  and  needs  agriculturists, 
should  be  flooded  with  young  graduates,  who  despise 
farming,  and  whose  one  aim  is  to  obtain  Government 
employment.  It  is  the  custom  here,  as  in  Greece,  to  make 
all,  or  nearly  all,  public  offices  dependent  on  the  Ministry 
of  the  day,  and  the  result  here  has  been  that  when  Dr. 
Stoiloff  succeeded  the  late  M.  Stambuloff  as  Prime 
Minister  he  made  a  clean  sweep  of  his  predecessor's 
supporters.     Accordingly,  independent  politicians  suffer, 

440 


in   the   Near   East 

while  a  premium  is  put  upon  time-serving.  I  know  one 
Bulgarian  gentleman,  a  man  of  the  highest  English  educa- 
tion, who  lost  his  post  as  a  professor  simply  because  he 
had  been  a  conspicuous  follower  of  the  Bulgarian  Bis- 
marck, and  was  too  honest  to  trim  his  sails  to  every  pass- 
ing breeze.  It  will  be  a  good  thing  for  Bulgaria  if  this 
"spoils  system"  be  discontinued,  and  until  it  ceases  there 
can  be  no  freedom  of  election  here,  for  the  Government 
of  the  day  can  always  exercise  immense  pressure  through 
its  officials,  whose  existence  depends  upon  its  favour,  so 
as  to  secure  the  return  of  its  candidates.  But,  even  so, 
though  by  no  means  faultless,  the  Bulgarian  Government 
is  better  than  the  rule  of  Abdul  Hamid.  Besides,  we  must 
not  judge  too  harshly  and  by  Western  standards  a  young 
nation  which,  after  nearly  live  centuries  of  Turkish 
tyranny,  has  enjoyed  only  twenty  years  of  free  institu- 
tions. The  wonder  is,  not  that  young  Bulgaria  has  com- 
mitted faults,  but  that  she  has  done  so  much  in  so  short 
a  time. 

To  travel  through  South  Bulgaria  without  visiting  the 
Shipka  Pass,  the  scene  of  the  great  struggle  between 
Russians  and  Turks  in  the  war  of  twenty  years  ago, 
would  have  been  an  unwarrantable  omission,  all  the 
more  so  as  the  route  from  Philippopolis  lies  by  way  of 
the  famous  Valley  of  Roses,  whence  Western  Europe 
derives  so  large  a  part  of  its  most  delicious  perfume. 
Accordingly,  we  made  elaborate  preparations  for  the  four 
days'  driving  and  riding,  which  a  visit  to  the  Shipka 
involves.  We  laid  in  ample  supplies  in  the  shape  of 
tinned  meats,  and  secured  the  services  of  an  excellent 
driver,  by  name  Georgi,  who  spoke  Greek  as  well  as 
Bulgarian,  and  acted  as  a  servant  when  not  attending  to 
his  horses.  We  started  from  Philippopolis  at  half-past  five 
in  the  morning  in  one  of  those  light  victorias  drawn  by 
three  horses,  known  in  Bulgaria  as  a  payfoii — an  obvious 

441 


Travels  and   Politics 

corruption  of  the  ordinary  word  phaeton.  We  crossed 
the  yellow  IVIarica  at  a  rattHng  pace,  and  were  soon  trav- 
ersing the  vast  plain  which  stretches  between  the  chain  of 
Rhodope  and  the  advance  guard  of  the  Balkan  range. 
As  we  drove  along  we  met  groups  of  peasants  clad  in  the 
brown  suits  and  black  sheepskin  caps  of  the  country,  and 
driving  their  lumbering  wains  into  town.     Nothing  can 


^*'9&S:tl 


HULCiAKlAXS    DAXCIXG. 

(Fiviii  a  Plioto.  bv  Mr.   U'mtiilau:) 

be  more  picturesque  than  the  white  Bulgarian  oxen 
which  draw  these  waggons,  unless  it  be  their  shaggy 
black  yoke-fellows,  buffaloes  all  save  the  hump,  which  are 
so  common  in  this  part  of  the  Balkan  Peninsula.  The 
Bulgarian  peasant  does  not  vouchsafe  much  attention  to 
the  traveller;  unlike  the  Greek  he  is  not  very  inquisitive, 
but  exhibits  all  the  stolidity  of  the  Slav  in  his  demeanour. 

442 


in   the   Near   East 

Here  and  there  we  drove  through  the  floods,  which  had 
inundated  the  road,  and  in  one  place  a  broken  bridge 
compelled  iis  to  make  a  detour  of  half  a  mile.  But  the 
road  was,  on  the  whole,  infinitely  better  than  anything 
of  the  kind  in  Tuidvcy,  unless  it  be  at  Brusa,  for  the  Bul- 
garians, unlike  the  Turks,  keep  up  their  highways  and 
repair  the  holes  in  them  at  once.  Occasionally  a  grass- 
covered  mound  broke  the  monotony  of  the  plain — one  of 
those  strange  tiniiiili  which  abound  in  Thrace,  and  still 
perplex  the  antiquary.  Many  of  them  have  been  opened 
in  the  hope  of  finding  ancient  remains  ;  but  the  search 
has  so  far  been  in  vain,  and  the  Thracian  fiiiiiiili  have 
furnished  nothing  but  material  for  the  ingenious  theories 
of  learned  professors.  At  last,  after  passing  some  warm 
springs,  we  began  to  climb  the  spurs  of  the  mountains, 
and  arrived  at  one  o'clock  at  the  pretty  little  town  of 
Kalofer,  where  we  intended  to  spend  the  night. 

Kalofer  is  a  typical  Balkan  settlement,  straggling  along 
the  banks  of  a  rushing  mountain  stream — the  Tundza, 
and  embowered  in  trees  and  fields  of  roses.  The  low 
wooden  houses,  covered  with  vines  and  creepers,  look 
delightfully  picturesque,  and  their  inhabitants  seemed 
happy  and  prosperous,  in  spite  of  the  bad  season  and  the 
ruined  crops.  Yet  Kalofer  has  known  very  evil  days. 
For  it  was  in  this  pleasant  little  place  that  some  of  the 
most  cruel  deeds  of  the  Russo-Turkish  war  were  done. 
All  Kalofer  had  welcomed  as  one  man  the  army  of 
General  Gourkho  on  its  arrival  from  beyond  the  Balkans 
in  the  July  days  of  1877.  But  the  rejoicings  of  the 
Bulgars,  emancipated  at  last  from  their  oppressors,  were 
of  brief  duration.  Their  deliverers  were  forced  by  the 
superior  numbers  of  the  Turks  to  retreat,  and  Kalofer 
was  left  to  the  mercy,  or  rather  the  vengeance,  of  its 
former  masters.  The  inhabitants  in  vain  endeavoured  to 
defend  their  houses,  but  they  could  not  hope  to  succeed 

443 


Travels   and   Politics 

where  the  Russians  had  failed.  The  victorious  Turks 
hiid  the  town  in  ashes,  and  put  to  the  sword  ah  who  had 
not  escaped  for  refuge  to  the  gorges  of  the  sheltering 
Balkans.  Since  then  Kalofer  has  risen  from  its  ashes, 
but  not  a  single  house  in  the  place  bears  upon  it  an 
earlier  date  than  1879. 

PVom  Kalofer  it  was  an  easy  drive  of  four  hours  next 
morning  through  the  Valley  of  Roses  to  Kazanlik,  a  very 
flourishing   town    of   ten  thousand  inhabitants,  and  the 
seat  of  the  rose  industry,  to  which  all  the  district  owes  its 
prosperity.      Three  weeks   earlier   the   whole   valley  was 
ablaze  with  fields  of  these  pink  flowers,  and  even  now, 
after  the  rose  harvest  was  over,  a  few  stray  blossoms  re- 
mained to  liive  me  some  faint  idea  of  what  the  scene  must 
have  been.     The  Thracian  or  Damask  rose,  from  which 
the  attar  of  roses  is  prepared,  is  a  simple  flower  of  a  pink 
hue,  which  flourishes  admirably  in  this  sandy  soil.     Of 
all  the  attar  of  roses  produced  for  the  European  market 
more  than  one-half  comes  from  this   one  valley,  and  M. 
Christo    Christoli,    the    principal    dealer    here,    who    has 
written  a  book  on  the  subject,  which  has  been  translated 
into  English,  assured  me  that,  in  spite  of  the  excessive 
wet  of  the  season,  which  had  made  the  rose  bushes  very 
leafy,  the  crop  was  a  fair  one.     Even  at  this  time  of  day 
the  methods  of  the  peasants  who  distil  the  oil  of  roses 
are  delightfully  primitive.     We  saw  at  Kalofer  and  at  the 
village  of  Shipka  some  of  the  distillers  at  work  with  their 
large  metal  retorts  and  their  huge  baskets  of  rose  leaves. 
1   am  told,  however,    that    it    is  exceedingly  diflicult   to 
obtain  attar  of  roses  even  on  the  spot  absolutely  genuine. 
I  am  afraid  that  Bulgarian  "  rural  simplicity  "  has  learned 
the  art  of  doctoring  the  rose  leaves;  but,  even  so,  the  attar 
is  sufficiently  powerful  for  the  nostrils  of  most  persons. 
When    it    is  remembered    that   as    many  as    3,200    kilo- 
grammes  of   rose  leaves  are  required   to  yield  a  single 


in   the   Near  East 

kilogramme  of  oil,  the  cost  of  attar  of  roses  is  easily 
explained.  One  of  M.  Christoff's  distillers  showed  me 
a  small  jar  containing  about  sixty  ounces  of  essence, 
which  was  worth  £ioo.  No  wonder  that  he  kept 
the  precious  jar  in  a  chest  under  lock  and  key  and 
wrapped  in  cloths  !  As  we  drove  along,  the  indefatigable 
peasants,  women  as  well  as  men^ — -for  the  female  Bul- 
garian always  works  in  the  fields — were  busy  in  the  rose 
gardens,  attending  to  the  stripped  bushes  w^th  the  utmost 
care,  and  singing  merrily  as  they  w^orked.  This  seems, 
indeed,  to  be  the  paradise  of  the  peasant.  A  country 
so  naturally  rich  as  this,  with  no  social  question  to  solve, 
for  there  are  no  great  fortunes  here  to  excite  the  envy  of 
the  poor,  has  indeed  much  to  be  thankful  for.  If  only 
Bulgaria  had  no  politics,  that  curse  of  the  small  Balkan 
States !  Of  the  Bulgarians  else  might  it  be  said,  as  Virgil 
said  of  the  Roman  husbandmen,  0  fortiinaii  niinimii,  sua 
si  bona  iioriiif,  Agricohic !  Indeed,  the  natives  are  so 
independent  that  it  is  difficult  to  engage  them  to  work 
for  wages,  while  it  is  almost  impossible  to  obtain 
domestic  servants  here.  Every  one  wishes  to  be  his 
own   master  and  work  for  himself. 

But  the  outskirts  of  happy  Kazanlik  at  once  remind  the 
traveller  of  the  evils  of  war,  to  which  this  country  has 
been  so  ruthlessly  exposed.  From  the  back  windows  of 
M.  Christoff's  pretty  house  in  the  main  street  one  can 
see  the  Russian  monument  on  the  top  of  Shipka  Pass. 
An  hour  and  a  quarter's  drive  over  the  smiling  plain 
brought  us  to  the  village  of  Shipka,  outside  of  which  rise 
ominously  from  the  ground  the  three  tiiniiili,  from 
wiiich  the  deadly  Turkish  fire  was  directed  against  the 
Russians,  and  which  were  carried  with  desperate  bravery 
by  Skobeleff's  troops.  A  monument  and  the  remains  of 
the  Turkish  entrenchments  still  mark  the  spot,  w^hile 
Kazanlik  itself,  although  it  was  for  six  months  the  Turkish 

445 


PULGARIAX    PEASANTS. 


Travels  and  Politics  in  the  Near  East 

headquarters,  hears  no  trace  now  of  that  (iniicc  icrriblc. 
But  the  older  inhabitants  will  never  forget  that  appalling 
trial,  when  they  were  exiles  in  Roumania  or  the  Balkans  ; 
and  on  the  landing  of  the  inn  hangs  the  portrait  of  the 
Tzar  Alexander  II.,  "the  protector  and  liberator  of 
Bulgaria."  Foolish,  indeed,  were  the  Russians  to  allow 
General  Kaulbars'  knout  and  their  agents'  intrigues  to 
estrange  the  affection  which  their  "little  brothers"  of 
Bulgaria  felt  for  them  twenty  years  ago.  Yet  for  Europe 
the  mistakes  of  Russia  have  been  a  gain,  for  the  Bulga- 
rians have  exhibited  a  sturdy  independence  which  the 
temporary  Russophil  policy  at  present  pursued  bv  Prince 
Ferdinand  cannot  sap. 

We  were  received  at  Shipka  with  a  native  hospitality 
which  was  almost  overwhelming.  M.  Christoff  had 
telegraphed  on  to  have  horses  ready  for  our  ride  up  the 
pass,  and  on  our  arrival  at  the  village  M.  Doukovni- 
koff,  the  principal  inhabitant  and  a  distiller  of  rose 
essence,  received  us,  and  invited  us  to  his  comfortable 
house.  On  the  threshold,  according  to  the  pleasing 
Bulgarian  custom,  he  again  shook  our  hands,  and  as 
soon  as  we  were  seated  in  his  cool  parlour  his  wife 
presented  us  with  a  glass  of  cold  water,  a  spoonful  of 
preserve,  and  a  cup  of  coffee  each.  M.  Doukovnikoff 
showed  me  with  pride  a  large  photograph  of  the 
memorable  Sohranjc,  or  National  Convention,  which 
met  at  Trnovo  in  July,  1887,  for  the  election  of  Prince 
Ferdinand  as  ruler  of  Bulgaria,  and  of  which  he  was 
a  member.  He  produced,  too,  from  a  roomy  cupboard, 
which  served  him  as  a  bookcase,  an  old  file  of  the 
Svoboda  ("  Liberty "),  the  late  ]\I.  Stambuloff's  organ, 
and  carefully  sought  out  for  me  the  numbers  of  July, 
1895,  containing  the  news  of  that  statesman's  death, 
and  the  messages  of  condolence  with  Madame  Stam- 
buloff  from   abroad.     These   papers  had  evidently  been 

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carefully  studied,  for  each  telegram  was  marked  and 
numbered  in  the  margin,  so  that  M.  Doukovnikoff 
had  no  difficulty  in  at  once  finding  that  from  Windsor 
Castle,  which  he  read  aloud  with  great  delight,  as  well 
as  the  latest  news  from  the  other  daily  papers  about 
the  Jubilee  and  the  visit  of  Prince  Ferdinand  to 
London.  Thanks  to  his  orders,  we  were  soon  equipped 
with  horses  and  guides,  and  started  up  the  steep  path 
to  the  top  of  the  Shipka  Pass.  The  road  was  very  rough, 
and  how  carriages  manage  to  cross  it,  even  with  the  aid  of 
bullocks,  it  is  difficult  to  understand.  The  Pass  itself  is 
above  4,400  feet  above  the  sea-level,  and  commands  a 
superb  view  of  both  North  and  South  Bulgaria,  It  would 
be  difficult  to  imagine  a  greater  difference  than  that 
between  the  two  halves  of  the  Principality.  To  the  south 
extends  the  vast  plain,  dotted  here  and  there  with  the  red 
roofs  of  some  happy  village  or  town — Shipka  and  Kazanlik 
prominent  among  them.  On  the  north  you  have  one 
group  of  wooded  mountains  after  another,  till  in  the 
far  distance  you  can  just  discern  the  line  of  the  Danube 
as  it  bends  north-eastwards  by  Rustchuk.  In  one 
valley  you  can  spy  the  flourishing  town  of  Gabrovo 
on  the  river  Jantra,  a  manufacturing  town  famous  in 
history  as  the  site  of  the  first  Bulgarian  school  in  which 
instruction  was  given  in  the  vernacular  instead  of  in 
Greek.  A  range  of  hills  conceals  Trnovo,  the  capital 
of  the  old  Bulgarian  Tsars,  from  view,  but  you  can  see 
the  spot  where  it  stands,  and  the  place  where  Plevna 
lies  concealed,  and  much  more  besides  ;  while  over  your 
head  soars  a  majestic  eagle,  fit  denizen  of  this  Balkan 
Pass,  where  once  the  Russian  eagle  floated  over  the 
entrenchments.  A  plain  white  monument  and  a  little 
burial-ground  now  mark  the  place  for  which  Russian 
and  Turk  fought  six  weary  months,  and  the  neigh- 
bouring  heights   of    Mount   St.    Nicholas   are    crowned 

448 


in   the  Near  East 

with  simple  crosses  in  memory  of  the  Russians  and  their 
Bulgarian  alHes.  Our  guide  had  been  one  of  the  latter, 
and  his  eyes  gleamed  and  his  voice  grew  eloquent  as 
he  told  over  again  the  story  of  the  Shipka  Pass, 
pointing  out  where  the  Russians  and  where  the  Turks 
had  stood.  The  ground  is  still  covered  with  fragments 
of  Russian  and  Turkish  shells,  of  which  I  picked  up 
two  pieces,  and  the  remains  of  the  fortifications  are 
still  visible.  And  then  we  rode  slowly  down  to  M. 
Doukovnikoff's  hospitable  abode,  whence,  after  toasting 
"  England  and  Bulgaria  "  together,  we  left,  with  many 
a  handshake,  for  Kazanlik.  On  the  way  back  from  that 
place  to  Philippopolis,  we  had  a  curious  example  of 
primitive  surgery.  M.  Christoff's  daughter,  whose  father 
was  taking  her  to  school  in  Paris,  fell  out  of  her  carriage 
on  a  steep  hill  and  sprained  her  ankle.  We  drove  at  full 
speed  with  her  to  the  nearest  village,  a  place  called  Banja 
from  its  hot  springs,  where  her  father  ordered  her  injured 
leg  to  be  wrapped  in  sheepskins.  Instead  of  consulting 
a  proper  surgeon  at  Philippopolis,  as  we  suggested,  he 
preferred  to  send  for  a  "  specialist "  from  the  small  town 
of  Sopot,  whose  "  reputation  was  such  that  people  came 
from  Adrianople  to  consult  him."  Next  morning  the 
"  specialist "  arrived  in  the  shape  of  an  extraordinarily- 
clad  peasant,  who  wore  sheepskins  and  looked  more  like 
a  shepherd  than  a  surgeon.  He  carried  the  young  lady 
off  to  his  cottage  to  be  treated,  and  her  father's  faith  in 
his  untutored  skill  was  rewarded. 

It  is  a  striking  change  from  the  hot  Thracian  plain,  in 
which  Philippopolis  lies,  to  the  snow-capped  mountains 
and  cooler  air  of  the  "  Bulgarian  Switzerland,"  as  en- 
thusiasts call  the  district  close  to  the  Macedonian  frontier. 
The  moist  rice-fields  through  which  the  train  passes  after 
leaving  the  Eastern  Roumelian  capital  here  give  place  to 
Alpine  scenery,  and  instead  of  the  muddy  current  of  the 

449  2G 


Travels  and  Politics 

Marica  we  have  here  the  mountain  torrents  of  the  Iskei', 
sweeping  away  its  bridge  and  carrying  all  before  it.  From 
the  little  roadside  station  of  Banja,  famous  some  years  ago 
for  its  bands  of  brigands,  but  now  as  safe  as  Scotland,  we 
drove  for  four  hours  through  lovely  valleys  and  up  wooded 
hills,  backed  by  the  magnificent  range  of  the  Rilo 
Mountains,  to  the  flourishing  little  town  of  Samakov,  the 
headquarters  of  the  American  missionaries  in  Bulgaria, 
and  one  day  destined  to  be  the  health  resort  of  the 
Principality.  My  wife  and  I  were  the  first  English 
people — so  the  missionaries  told  us — who  had  ever  visited 
this  remote  spot,  and  our  arrival  accordingly  provoked  a 
considerable  amount  of  curiosity  among  the  inhabitants. 
Nor  is  it  to  be  wondered  at  that  few  British  travellers 
explore  the  interior  of  this  interesting  country  under 
existing  conditions.  No  one  who  has  not  visited  Bulgarian 
villages  can  have  any  idea  of  the  accommodation  provided 
for  the  visitor.  The  inns  are,  as  a  rule,  mere  Iiaiis,  where 
the  beds  swarm  with  fleas — I  slew  forty  in  a  single  night, 
w'hile  an  American  missionary  killed  fifty  more — and  other 
animals  even  worse,  and  the  sole  means  of  washing  is  a 
common  basin  placed  on  the  landing.  Other  necessaries 
of  the  toilet  are  altogether  lacking  ;  carpets  there  are  none, 
and  the  traveller  may  think  himself  lucky  if  he  can  secure 
a  room  to  himself  by  paying  for  all  the  beds  which  it 
contains,  and  so  preventing  the  incursion  of  any  other 
visitor.  Whenever  I  have  slept  in  a  Bulgarian  inn,  the 
whole  establishment  has  been  brought  up  to  gaze  with 
utter  wonder  and  amazement  at  my  indiarubber  bath, 
the  like  of  which  no  Bulgarian  had  ever  seen  before.  I 
feel  sure  that  if  any  future  British  tourist  penetrates  the 
interior  of  Bulgaria  without  one  of  these  baths,  he  will  be 
regarded  by  the  natives  as  no  genuine  son  of  Albion  !  As 
for  the  food  in  Bulgarian  inns,  the  most  that  can  be  said 
in  its  favour  is  that  it  is  eatable.     Vegetables  there  are 

450 


in   the   Near   East 

none,  but  the  wine  is  everywhere  excellent,  and  as  cheap 
as  possible.  In  fact,  charges  rule  very  low  in  these  primi- 
tive regions,  and  the  peasant  innkeepers  are  honesty 
itself,  never  trying  to  impose  upon  the  ignorance  of  the 
Western  traveller.  Thus  for  dinner,  bed,  and  breakfast 
for  two  people  I  have  paid  as  little  as  seven  francs,  and 
the  normal  price  for  a  bed  is  a  franc  everywhere.  But  it 
is  always  wise  to  carry  everything  you  may  want  with  you, 
so  that  if  the  innkeeper's  supplies  fail,  or  his  food  be 
impossibly  nasty,  you  may  have  tinned  meats  or  potted 
tunny  fish  or  sardines  to  fall  back  upon.  From  this  it 
will  be  seen  that  the  "  Bulgarian  Switzerland "  is  not 
much  like  the  "  playground  of  Europe  "  as  far  as  hotels 
are  concerned.  Here  the  commonest  Western  necessaries 
are  regarded  as  luxuries,  and  when  the  landlord  has 
provided  you  with  a  flea-covered  bed,  the  sheets  of  which 
are  changed  about  once  a  month,  and  are  stained  with  the 
gore  of  the  last  traveller,  he  thinks  he  has  done  all  that  is 
needful  for  your  comfort. 

Thanks,  however,  to  the  kindness  of  two  American 
missionaries.  Dr.  Clark  and  Dr.  Kingsbury,  we  were 
enabled  to  enjoy  a  few  creature  comforts  even  at  Samakov. 
It  is  impossible  not  to  admire  the  intense  zeal  and  self-abne- 
gation with  which  the  American  missionaries  pursue  their 
laborious  task  in  Bulgaria  and  Macedonia.  Here  are 
gentlemen  of  high  education  and  cultivated  minds  passing 
their  lives  in  a  half-civilised  country,  where  they  seldom 
see  any  one  with  whom  they  can  exchange  ideas,  and 
where  their  efforts  are  sometimes  quite  unappreciated. 
Badly  paid,  and  neither  seeking  nor  obtaining  the  least 
advertisement  in  an  age  when  every  quack  seeks  to  air  his 
views  and  pose  as  a  genius,  they  live  unknown  and  almost 
dead  to  the  outer  world.  Opinions  differ  as  to  the 
wisdom  of  their  propaganda  in  some  parts  of  the  East,  but 
there  can  be  only  one  view  as  to  their  absolute  and  disin- 

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Travels  and   Politics 

terested  devotion  to  their  work.     Here,  rather  than  among 
the  idle  monks  of  Mount  Athos,  you  will  find  the  Christian 
ideal  of  the  negation  of  self  actually  carried  out  in  this 
selfish    nineteenth  century.     At    Samakov,   for   instance, 
there  are  two  schools  entirely  under  the  supervision   of 
these  missionaries,  one  containing  about  fifty  boys  (all 
Bulgarians,    except    one  Serb   and   one   Armenian,    and 
mostly   hailing  from   Macedonia),  the  other  numbering 
sixty  female  pupils,  presided  over  by  Miss  Maltby,  a  very 
practical  American   lady.     Nearly  all  are  boarders,  and 
some  who  come  from  a  distance  even  remain  during  the 
holidays.      The    full   curriculum   lasts   for   seven   years, 
between  the  ages  of  thirteen  and  twenty,  but  few  pupils 
can  afford  to  stay  out  the  full   course.     I   was  especially 
glad  to  notice  that  Dr.  Kingsbury,  who  is  a  very  practical 
man,  with  a  knowledge  of  many  and  divers  handicrafts 
and  sciences,  lays  stress  on  technical  education,  which  is 
far  more  needful  in  a  country  like  Bulgaria  than  a  high 
degree  of  literary  culture  ;  for  all  thoughtful  people  whom 
I  met  during  my  stay  in  that  country  agreed  in  pointing 
out  the  danger  of  over-education  for  Bulgaria.    A  ''peasant 
state"  such  as  this,  which    has    no  manufactures  worth 
speaking  of  and  must  always  be  mainly  agricultural,  does 
not  want  and  cannot  provide  employment  for  a  great 
number    of   graduates.       In    the    early    days    after    the 
liberation  of  Bulgaria  from  Turkish  rule  there  was,  it   is 
true,  a  great  demand  for  young  men  of  superior  education 
to  fill  the  various  places  under  the  new  government.     But 
twenty  years  have  elapsed  since  then,  and  now  the  supply 
is  greater  than  the  demand.     The  result  will  be  the  same 
in  Bulgaria  as  in  Greece — the  growth  of  a  class  of  pro- 
fessional politicians   from    among  the  briefless  lawyers, 
hungry  doctors,  and  discontented  teachers  produced  by 
the  Bulgarian  schools.     Dr.  Kingsbury,  at  any  rate,  desires 
that  his  pupils  should  be  able  to  work  with  their  hands  as 

452 


in  the  Near  East 

well  as  their  heads.  He  has  established,  largely  out  of  his 
own  pocket,  a  printing  press  which  prints  a  school  paper 
in  Bulgarian  and  various  hymn  books  and  other  devotional 
works,  and  is  also  the  presiding  genius  of  the  carpenter's 
shop.  Many  of  the  chairs  used  in  the  school  were  made 
there,  and  he  tells  me  the  best  pupils  are  always  the  best 
printers.  One  lad  who  had  recently  left  the  school,  at 
once  obtained  a  post  as  a  printer  on  the  staff  of  a  paper  at 
Worcester,  U.S.A.,  where  he  has  since  been  most  success- 
ful. This  is  all  the  more  creditable  when  it  is  remembered 
that  the  boys  are  accustomed  to  compose  articles  not  in 
English  type,  but  in  the  Cyrillic  letters  of  the  Bulgarian 
alphabet.  It  seems  to  me,  however,  that  the  American 
schools  at  Samakov  would  be  more  serviceable  to  their 
pupils  if  English  were  made  compulsory,  as  it  is  at  Robert 
College.  I  noticed  that  few  of  the  pupils,  even  those 
who  had  been  there  some  time,  spoke  English  at  all 
well,  the  reason  being  that  instruction  is  given,  as  a 
rule,  in  Bulgarian.  Two  other  defects  deserve  attention. 
First  and  foremost,  the  pupils  are  not  sulSciently  alive 
to  the  fact  that  "  manners  makyth  man."  Now  your 
Bulgarian  in  the  raw  state,  although  he  possesses  many 
solid  virtues,  is  not  one  of  nature's  noblemen,  like  the 
Montenegrin,  who  is  the  gentleman  par  excellence  of  the 
Near  East.  But  one  has  only  to  observe  the  fine  martial 
bearing  and  admirable  manners  of  the  Bulgarian  officers 
to  see  that  out  of  this  very  raw  material  excellent  and 
highly  polished  stuff  can  be  made.  Now  the  collarless, 
perspiring,  and  unshorn  students  of  Samakov  are  ex- 
cellent young  fellows,  if  they  were  only  more  careful  of 
externals.  As  it  is,  they  contrast  very  unfavourably 
with  the  officers  who  spring  from  the  same  peasant 
stock  as  themselves.  At  times,  too,  these  uncouth  pro- 
ducts of  Western  education  are  apt  to  be  priggish.  It 
is  rather  appalling  to  be  told  by  a  Bulgarian  lad  that  he 

4.S3 


Travels   and   Politics 

wishes  to  learn  English  "  in  order  to  read  the  many 
moral  and  improving  works  which  abound  in  your 
language."  One  has  an  uneasy  suspicion  that  this 
sort  of  young  man  may  later  on  develop  into  the  style 
of  person  who  combines  high  moral  sentiments  with 
very  worldly  practices.  Of  such  personages — prize  pupils 
of  "  European  "  schools  in  their  time — there  are  several 
examples  in  Bulgarian  public  life.  A  second  defect  in  the 
American  schools  at  Samakov  is  the  omission  to  keep  an 
eye  on  the  later  career  of  the  pupils  after  they  have  com- 
pleted their  education.  Only  in  this  way  can  the  real  and 
practical  efficiency  of  the  system  be  tested.  At  Robert 
College  such  a  register  of  old  pupils  is  scrupulously 
preserved.     The  same  should  be  done  at  Samakov. 

Bat  the  greatest  difficulty  against  which  civilisation  has 
to  contend  in  this  newly  emancipated  Principality  is  the 
extreme  conservatism  of  the  Bulgarian  people,  and  its 
fantastic  notions  of  its  own  dignity.  Take,  for  instance, 
the  question  of  domestic  servants,  which  is  far  more  acute 
in  Bulgaria  than  even  in  London.  In  fact,  not  only  does 
it  render  housekeeping  most  expensive,  but  it  practically 
cripples  all  social  life.  For  no  Bulgarian  will  ever  enter 
domestic  service  unless  absolutely  driven  to  it  by  extreme 
poverty.  Widows  are  as  a  rule  the  only  servants  avail- 
able, and  they  will  only  become  cooks  or  housemaids  on 
condition  that  all  their  family  is  taken  with  them.  Thus, 
an  English  lady  of  my  acquaintance,  who  is  married  to  a 
Bulgarian  at  Philippopolis,  has  to  keep  six  servants  to  do 
the  work  of  two.  Moreover,  the  servants  consider  them- 
selves on  an  absolute  equality  with  their  employers,  and 
insist  on  being  introduced  to,  and  shaking  hands  with,  the 
visitors.  Should  the  latter  be  "  Europeans,"  they  will  pro- 
bably be  introduced  in  the  contemptuous  phrase  that  "  a 
man  has  called."  Servants  leave  on  the  least  rebuke  from 
their  mistresses,  and  the  only  way  to  keep  them  is  to  let 

454 


in   the  Near  East 

their  wages  fall  into  arrears.  Even  nurses — and  in  Bulgaria 
no  self-respecting  mother  nourishes  her  own  child — will 
leave  their  young  charges  in  a  huff.  So  strong  is  the  sen- 
timent against  doing  anything  in  the  nature  of  menial 
work,  that  I  know  of  a  case  where  a  girl  refused  to  fetch 
medicine  from  the  chemist  for  her  own  mother.  But  the 
same  girl  would  work  in  a  stranger's  garden  or  do  needle- 
work, because  these  occupations  are  considered  honour- 
able for  Bulgarian  women,  who  will  tear  one  another's 
hair  out  for  the  sake  of  earning  a  piastre  by  their  needles. 
But  no  sum  will  tempt  these  people  to  do  what  they  con- 
sider beneath  their  dignity.  Not  even  a  heavy  tip  would 
induce  a  loafer  at  the  Banja  station  to  carry  my  luggage. 
He  was  in  rags,  but  he  would  not  earn  sixpence  as  a 
porter  because  that  was  not  his  business.  The  cleverest 
Bulgarian  novelist  of  the  day,  Mr.  Ivan  Vasoff — whose 
best  work,  "  Under  the  Yoke,"  has  been  translated  into 
English — has  made  this  subject  the  theme  of  one  of  his 
amusing  sketches  of  life  in  the  Bulgarian  capital.  In  fact, 
if  it  were  not  for  the  Macedonian  girls  whom  they  import 
for  the  purpose,  the  Bulgarian  ladies  would  often  be  abso- 
lutely without  servants.  Yet  these  young  Macedonians 
go  home  and  get  married  as  soon  as  they  have  made  a 
little  money  ;  for  a  girl  who  is  not  married  at  twenty  is  in 
this  part  of  the  world  accounted  a  disgrace  indeed  to  her 
family. 

I  had  intended  to  avail  myself  of  my  stay  at  Samakov 
to  visit  the  famous  Monastery  of  Rilo,  one  of  the  finest 
historic  buildings  in  the  whole  Balkan  Peninsula,  which 
lies  up  in  the  mountains  not  far  from  the  Macedonian 
frontier.  It  was  there  that  the  holy  hermit,  John  of  Rilo, 
sought  and  found  quiet  and  repose  a  thousand  years  ago, 
and  beneath  the  cave  which  served  him  as  a  dwellin<f- 

o 

place,  and  afterwards  as  a  tomb,  his  pious  disciples  reared 
the  fabric  of  a  monastery,  which  was  endowed  by  the  old 

455 


Travels  and  Politics  in  the  Near  East 

Bulgarian  Tsars,  and  respected  even  by  the  Sultans,  and 
which  served  during  the  long  period  of  Turkish  rule  as 
the  centre  of  all  national  and  religious  life.  Unhappily,  a 
great  fire  in  the  early  part  of  the  present  century  almost 
entirely  destroyed  this  great  monument,  which  has  sur- 
vived so  many  political  changes,  and  the  building  which 
now  occupies  its  place  is  comparatively  modern.  But 
Rilo  is  still  for  the  Bulgarians  the  most  interesting 
memorial  of  their  stormy  past.  Thither  Prince  Ferdinand 
sometimes  retires  from  the  summer  heat  of  Sofia,  and 
thence  he  is  wont  to  show  to  his  guests  that  "  promised 
land "  of  Macedonia  over  which  it  is  the  ambition  of 
Bulgarian  patriots  to  rule.  It  was  on  one  of  these  occa- 
sions that  an  excited  journalist  toasted  his  princely  host 
as  "  the  heir  of  Constantine."  But  the  terrific  floods,  un- 
equalled for  violence  during  the  last  hundred  years,  made 
it  impossible  for  me  to  reach  the  Monastery.  The  cour- 
teous iiacnliiik,  or  sub-prefect,  informed  me  that  the 
bridle-path  over  the  mountains  was  impracticable,  and 
that  a  large  part  of  the  carriage  road,  together  with  a 
bridge,  had  been  destroyed.  So  I  was  forced  to  content 
myself  with  a  sight  of  the  historic  mound  called  after 
Ivan  the  Fat,  that  hapless  Bulgarian  Tsar  whose  head  was 
cut  off  on  this  spot  by  the  victorious  Turks,  and  bounded 
seven  times  on  the  slope  as  it  fell,  and  wherever  it  bounded, 
so  runs  the  legend,  a  spring  of  water  burst  forth  from  the 
ground.  Then  I  took  my  way  down  to  the  railway,  and 
soon  found  myself  in  the  excellent  "  European  "  hotel  of 
the  Bulgarian  capital. 

Sofia,  has,  indeed,  very  few  traces  of  its  Turkish  past 
nowadays.  Although  only  twenty  years  have  elapsed  since 
the  "collective  wisdom"  of  Europe  created  free  and  auto- 
nomous Bulgaria,  and  Sofia  became  the  capital  of  the  new 
state,  the  town  has  completely  shaken  oft"  the  slough  of  its 
previous  existence.     Few  cities,  even  in  the  hurtling  West 

456 


Travels  and  Politics 

of  America,  have  grown  with  the  rapidity  of  the  Bulgarian 
metropolis.  In  1878,  the  year  in  which  Bulgaria  was 
finally  emancipated,  Sofia  was  a  squalid  Turkish  town  of 
11,000  inhabitants;  to-day  it  possesses  fine  streets,  and 
"European"  buildings,  a  delightfully  cool  public  garden, 
a  large  palace,  and  a  population  of  nearly  60,000  souls. 
The  Sofiotes  believe  that  before  long  they  will  number 
100,000,  and  thus  pass  Belgrade,  as  they  have  already 
passed  Philippopolis.  True,  in  the  matter  of  shops, 
Philippopolis  is  still  much  superior  to  the  capital.  The 
wares  on  show  in  the  streets  of  Sofia  are  very  poor,  and 
mostly  of  Austrian  manufacture,  it  being  cheaper  to 
import  goods  from  beyond  the  Danube  than  to  make  them 
at  home.  But  in  all  other  externals  of  civilisation  Sofia 
has  gone  ahead.  Its  geographical  position  and  the  con- 
struction of  the  railroad  from  Belgrade  to  Constantinople 
have  both  greatly  assisted  its  progress.  People  have  often 
thought  it  strange  that,  when  Bulgaria  was  emancipated, 
Sofia,  and  not  Trnovo  or  Rustchuk,  should  have  been 
selected  as  its  capital.  Trnovo  had  been  the  capital  in  the 
time  of  the  old  Bulgarian  Tsars,  and  is  far  more  central, 
while  Rustchuk  lay  on  the  Danube,  and  had  been  the 
capital  of  the  Turkish  vilayet  which  took  its  name  from 
that  river.  On  the  other  hand,  Sofia  was  in  a  corner  of 
the  Principality,  and  near  the  Macedonian  frontier.  But 
it  has  been  pointed  out  to  me  that  this  very  proximity  to 
Macedonia  has  been  of  great  advantage  to  the  capital. 
For  of  the  present  population  of  Sofia,  fully  20,000,  or 
about  one-third,  are  Bulgarians  who  have  fled  since  the 
creation  of  the  Principality  from  the  Turkish  misrule  in 
Macedonia,  to  liv'e  among  their  own  kith  and  kin  in  peace. 
And  whenever  the  long-wanted  line  from  Sofia  into 
Macedonia,  already  constructed  as  far  as  Radomir,  is  com- 
pleted, the  influence  which  the  Bulgarian  capital  exercises 
over  the  Bulgarians  of   Macedonia  will  be  still  greater. 

45« 


in  the  Near  East 

Both  MM.  Grekoff  and  Nacevic,  the  two  most  experienced 
Hving  Bulgarian  statesmen,  laid  stress,  in  conversation  with 
me,  on  the  need  of  this  line,  and  the  present  Government 
shares  their  view.  But  the  decision  rests  not  with  Bulgaria 
but  with  Turkey,  which  declined  to  do  anything  until  the 
line  between  Constantinople  and  Salonica,  which  was  so 
useful  in  the  late  war,  had  been  made.  Even  after  that 
line  was  completed,  the  Sultan  still  delayed  to  make  the 
other,  even  though  the  Bulgarian  Government  went  so  far 
as  to  offer  the  use  of  it  to  the  Turks  for  military  purposes 
in  certain  contingencies.  According  to  the  Bulgarian 
agent  in  Constantinople,  the  Turkish  Government  has 
now  conceded  this  point,  and  a  line  will  be  made  to 
Kumanova,  a  station  on  the  railway  from  Servia  to 
Salonica.  A  new  route  will  thus  be  opened  to  that 
great  port.  Meanwhile,  the  Principality  is  putting  forth 
its  energies  in  other  directions.  A  line  is  being  con- 
structed which  will  unite  Sofia  with  Plevna,  Trnovo,  and 
Sumla,  and  is  expected  to  be  completed  this  autumn. 
Another  has  been  decided  upon  from  Trnovo  to  Rustchuk, 
so  that  thus  North  Bulgaria  w^ill  at  last  have  some  out- 
let for  its  trade  by  rail.  Other  schemes  are  projected,  but 
it  is  a  pity  that  the  Bulgarian  system  of  accepting  tenders 
is  so  bad.  After  these  have  been  sent  in,  there  is  always 
a  second  allotment,  which  enables  native  financiers,  who 
"  know  the  ropes  "  but  know  nothing  about  engineering, 
to  underbid  all  competitors.  The  result  is  bad  work,  as 
the  line  cannot  be  properly  made  for  the  money.  The 
new  line  to  Trnovo  is  a  case  in  point.  It  had  been  so  badly 
constructed  that  the  floods  of  last  year  washed  nearly  all 
of  it  away.  If  Bulgaria  wants  good,  and  in  the  end  cheap, 
railways,  she  must  be  prepared  to  pay  for  them.  It  is 
unfortunate,  too,  that  the  mutual  jealousies  of  the  various 
towns  impede  the  extension  of  railways.  Thus  the  Danube 
town  of  Svistov  protested  against  the  expenditure  of  money 

459 


Travels  and  Politics 

on  the  line  from  Rustchuk  (its  rival)  to  Trnovo,  and  de- 
manded the  application  of  the  funds  to  the  erection  of 
quays  on  the  river. 

But  perhaps  the  most  striking  Western  innovation  in 
Sofia  since  the  Turkish  times  is  the  fine  Palace  of  the 
Sobniiije,  or  Parliament,  erected  at  a  cost  of  ^^80,000, 
which  is  easily  the  most  imposing  edifice  of  the  kind  in 
the  Balkan  Peninsula.  Compared  with  the  mean  little 
building  in  which  the  Servian  Skiipsfina  meets,  or  even 
with  the  more  imposing  Boiilc  at  Athens,  the  Bulgarian 
House  of  Parliament  looks  very  well  indeed,  although  its 
acoustic  properties  are  not  very  good.  The  accommoda- 
tion for  members  is  excellent,  the  seats  being  arranged 
in  a  half-circle,  and  there  being  a  place  for  every  deputy. 
The  library  is  very  strong  in  Parliamentary  and  legal 
works,  the  galleries  are  capacious,  and  there  are  small, 
well-appointed  rooms  for  the  Premier,  the  Ministers,  and 
the  Speaker.  I  noticed  in  the  latter's  room  a  picture  of 
the  little  Prince  Boris,  whose  hand  Ministers  are  expected 
to  kiss  whenever  they  meet  him.  This  ridiculous  practice 
has  caused  much  dissatisfaction,  and  the  officers  of  the 
army  have  intimated  to  Prince  Ferdinand  that  they  object 
strongly  to  this  act  of  courtly  humiliation.  Their  re- 
monstrance has  had  the  desired  effect,  but  the  whole 
system  of  the  child's  education  is  most  unwise.  Bul- 
garians of  all  opinions  are  agreed  in  their  criticisms  of 
the  absurd  state  with  which  Prince  Ferdinand,  a  great 
stickler  for  etiquette,  has  surrounded  his  heir.  When 
the  tiny  Prince  drives  out  he  is  escorted  by  a  detachment 
of  officers  and  soldiers,  and  accompanied  by  a  high 
ecclesiastical  dignity.  This  seems  all  the  more  ridiculous 
when  one  sees  a  really  important  sovereign  like  the 
Emperor  of  Austria  driving  through  the  streets  of 
Vienna  with  a  single  attendant.  The  result  in  Bulgaria 
will  be  that  Prince  Boris  will  grow  up  to  be  a  tyrant  and 

460 


in  the  Near  East 


a  despot,  and  the  fault  will  lie  with  those  who  have  so 
misdirected  his  early  training,  and  primarily  with  his 
father. 

The  British  Foreign  OiSce  and  few  other  persons  at 
home  have  any  idea  of  the  unpopularity  of  Prince  Ferdi- 
nand in  Bulgaria.  During  the  lifetime  of  Stambuloff 
the  Prince  played  a  subordinate  part,  and  thus  escaped 


"  THE   TINY   PRINCE   DRIVES  OUT." 

{Froiii  a  Plioto.  by  Mi:  Wraflslmv.) 

hostile  criticism,  which  centred  in  the  person  of  his  all- 
powerful  Premier.  But  since  the  murder  of  "  the  Bul- 
garian Bismarck"  the  Prince  has  been  practically  his 
own  Premier  ;  for  M,  Stoiloff,  who  acts  as  such,  openly 
avows  that  he  is  merely  the  Prince's  man,  without  any 
initiative  of  his  own.  Accordingly,  for  every  unpopular 
act  of  the  Government,  the  Prince,  and  not  the  Premier, 
who  is  merely  wax  in  his  hands,  is  freely  blamed.     Durino- 

461 


Travels  and   Politics 

my  stay  in  the  country  I  heard  the  Prince  praised  by  no 
one  except  the  editor  of  the  ]\Ili-{" La  Paix"),  the  Govern- 
ment organ,  who  naturally  does  his  best  for  his  client. 
Elsewhere  the  Prince  is  universally  censured.  The  main 
objections  to  him  are  two-fold — first,  his  Russophil 
policy ;  and,  secondly,  his  love  of  show  and  etiquette. 
As  for  the  former,  the  Bulgarians,  I  am  convinced,  have 
not  forgotten — and  will  not  soon  forget — the  knout  of 
Kaulbars  and  the  other  amenities  of  the  Russian  era. 
On  the  other  hand,  they  cannot  be  justly  accused  of 
ingratitude,  for  they  revere  the  memory  of  "the  Tsar 
Liberator,"  Alexander  II.,  whose  portrait  still  adorns 
many  a  village  inn,  and  whose  tragic  end  is  commemo- 
rated by  two  mementoes  in  the  Parliament  House.  But 
they  are  a  very  independent  people,  and  wish  to  be  allowed 
to  live  their  lives  in  their  own  way.  "The  Russians 
treated  us  like  children,"  a  young  Bulgarian  diplomatist 
once  said  to  me.  The  Prince,  however,  wanted  to  be 
"recognised"  by  Russia  at  any  cost,  and  accordingly 
sacrificed  first  his  great  Minister,  and  secondly  the 
religion  of  his  son  and  heir,  in  order  to  pacify  Russia. 
Bulgaria  has  gained  nothing  by  these  sacrifices.  Russia 
has  of  late  dictated  her  foreign  policy,  and  she  has 
obtained  practically  naught  except  promises  from  Turkey 
by  her  threatening  attitude  during  the  late  war  and  at 
the  close  of  last  year,  when  there  was  at  one  moment 
danger  of  war.  The  present  policy  of  the  Prince  is  to 
advocate  the  formation  of  two  autonomous  provinces  of 
Macedonia  and  Albania  under  the  rule  of  the  Sultan, 
and  an  entente  with  Turkey.  But  Prince  Ferdinand's 
one  aim  in  all  that  he  does  is  to  increase  his  own  personal 
and  social  position.  It  is  generally  believed  that  he  desires 
the  title  of  King,  so  that  he  may  be  on  social  equality 
with  the  rulers  of  Servia  and  Roumania  and  may  be 
allowed  to  dispense  with  the  odious  necessity  of  wearing 

462 


in   the   Near   East 

a  fez  when  he  visits  his  sovereign  at  Yildiz  Kiosk.  It  is 
believed  in  diplomatic  circles  that  the  Prince  would 
mobilise  his  army  immediately  after  declaring  himself 
King ;  this,  however,  would  be  merely  to  keep  up 
appearances,  for  the  Sultan  would  only  attack  him 
in  the  event  of  a  Bulgarian  march  into  Macedonia.  It  is 
quite  conceivable  that  the  Prince,  of  whom  his  relative 
the  Comtesse  de  Paris  once  said  that  he  cared  for  nothing 
except  titles  and  orders,  would  be  willing  to  sacrifice 
material  advantages  to  the  empty  dignity  of  a  royal  crown. 
But  he  will  do  nothing,  in  this  direction,  without  the 
consent  of  Russia. 

Meanwhile  the  domestic  policy  of  the  Prince  has  been 
equally  unpopular.  The  Bulgarians  prize  economy 
above  all  other  virtues,  yet  every  municipality  which 
the  Prince  has  visited  has  been  obliged  to  run  into  debt, 
owing  to  the  cost  of  receiving  him  in  what  he  considers 
befitting  pomp,  and  his  marriage  alone  cost  ;4'i 20,000. 
These  peasant-farmers  ask — not  without  reason — why  he 
should  keep  up  such  unnecessary  state,  and  compare  his 
stiff  manners  with  the  free  and  easy  style  of  the  late 
Prince  Alexander.  I  have  been  assured  by  those  likely 
to  know  that  nothing  but  the  remembrance  of  the  chaos 
which  followed  the  kidnapping  of  Alexander  and  the 
dread  of  Russian  interference  prevents  the  deposition  of 
Alexander's  successor.  Certainly  the  methods  of  his 
government  are  in  no  way  superior  to  those  of  Stambuloff, 
while  the  latter,  with  all  his  faults,  was  a  great  statesman. 
Nothing  can  excuse  such  acts  of  violence  as  have  recently 
occurred  in  Bulgaria,  with  the  cognisance,  it  is  said,  of 
the  authorities.  When  last  year  a  harmless  lawyer,  who 
lived  in  the  same  house  as  the  British  Vice-Consul 
at  Sofia,  and  had  been  defending  a  member  of  the 
Opposition  in  the  ordinary  course  of  his  profession,  was 
shot  by  mistake  for  his  client  as  he  was  riding  with  the 

463 


Travels  and   Politics 

latter  to  Tatar  Bazardzik,  a  Ministerial  journal  remarked 
that  it  felt  sorry  for  the  victim,  but  that  really  he  should 
not  have  been  in  such  bad  company.  Even  more 
striking  was  the  fact  that  the  murdered  man's  relatives 
took  his  murder  quite  as  a  matter  of  course.  The 
cudgelling  of  a  Bourgas  editor,  who  had  commented 
severely  on  the  Prince,  is  another  instance  of  these 
distinctly  Oriental  methods.  Those  who  live  near  the 
prison  at  Philippopolis  tell  horrible  tales  of  the  groans 


liKIDGE    OVER   THE   MARICA,    SCENE   OF   THE    PHILIPPOPOLIS    MURDER. 

(From' a  Photo,  by  Mr.  U'nitislaw.) 

and  shrieks  which  come  from  within  the  walls  at  night. 
And,  worst  of  all,  the  disclosures  made  in  the  murder  trial 
at  that  city  last  year — disclosures  which  would  never  have 
been  made  but  for  the  fact  that  the  Austrian  Consul 
insisted  on  an  inquiry — have  shown  that  Bulgaria,  under 
a  Western  ruler,  has  not  become  emancipated  from 
Eastern  methods  of  politics.  Yet,  in  private  life,  the 
average  Bulgarian  is  an  excellent  fellow — honest,  hard- 
working, and  hospitable.  It  is  in  the  political  arena  that 
he  still  displays  beneath  the  thin  veneer  of  twenty  years' 

464 


in  the  Near  East 

civilisation  the  ejffect  of  five  centuries  of  Turkish  rule. 
To  "  remove "  a  political  opponent  is  accordingly  still 
regarded  as  an  ordinary  and  recognised  party  weapon, 
and  the  license  of  language  in  the  party  press  exceeds  all 
decent  bounds.  The  extent  to  which  party  feeling  is 
carried  may  be  proved  by  the  fact  that  the  hall-porter 
of  my  hotel  solemnly  rebuked  me  for  desiring  to  see  M. 
Petkoff,  the  editor  of  the  Svoboda,  the  leading  Opposition 
paper,  which,  as  he  said,  "  it  is  better  not  to  read."  And 
when  I  suggested  that  that  gentleman  should  visit  me,  I 
was  told  by  one  of  his  staff  that  it  was  not  advisable  for 
him  to  go  to  the  hotel.  It  will  be  seen  from  this  that  the 
Bulgarians  takes  their  politics  very  seriously. 

When  Bulgaria  suddenly  sprang  into  existence  as  an 
autonomous  Principality,  none  of  her  sons  could  boast 
of  any  experience  in  the  government  of  a  free  country. 
During  five  centuries  of  Turkish  rule  all  public  life  was 
stagnant,  and  the  change  was  accordingly  tremendous 
when  the  newly  enfranchised  country  was  provided  with 
a  Constitution  by  a  stroke  of  the  pen.  Critics  of 
Bulgarian  men  and  manners  should  remember  this  utter 
lack  of  traditions  and  experience  when  they  point  out 
the  mistakes  of  Bulgarian  statesmen  and  expose  to  view 
with  scathing  comments  the  shortcomings  of  Bulgarian 
administration.  The  fact  is  that,  though  Bulgaria  is  no 
Utopia,  and  her  public  men  are  far  from  being  saints,  the 
country  has  done  as  well  as  might  have  been  expected 
from  its  past.  Compared  with  Greece  and  Servia,  the 
Principality  has  certainly  accomplished  wonders.  For 
the  Bulgarians  are  a  stolid,  plodding,  unimaginative  race, 
less  excited  by  great  ideas  of  territorial  expansion  than 
the  more  volatile  Greeks  and  Serbs.  The  Bulgarian 
is  a  peasant  at  heart,  and  the  peasant  class  is  in  all 
countries,  where  it  has  land  of  its  own,  the  most  con- 
servative and  the  least  inflammable. 

465  2H 


Travels  and  Politics 

Since  the  downfall  of  Stambiilof^  in  May,  1894,  Dr. 
Constantine  Stoiloff  has  been  Prime  Minister.  Dr. 
Stoiloff  is  the  prize  boy  of  Robert  College,  where  he 
graduated  in  the  class  of  1871,  so  that  he  is  still,  as 
Premiers  are  reckoned  in  other  countries,  a  young  man. 
But  Bulgarian  statesmen  are  generally  young,  and  Dr. 
Stoiloff  has  seen  a  great  deal  of  public  life  in  his  time. 
A  lawyer  by  profession,  he  has  been  a  judge  and  a 
Minister  of  Justice,  and  was  personally  concerned  in  the 
election  of  both  Princes  of  Bulgaria — for  he  was  a 
member  of  the  deputation  which  presented  the  crown 
to  Prince  Alexander,  and  was  one  of  the  three  travelling 
Commissioners  who  discovered  Prince  Ferdinand. 
Alexander  made  him  his  Private  Secretary,  a  post  for 
which  he  was  qualified  by  his  further  studies  at  Heidel- 
berg and  Leipzig,  after  he  had  left  Robert  College, 
and  he  served  as  an  officer  under  that  Prince  in  the 
Servian  War.  Ten  years  ago  he  held  the  Premiership 
for  a  brief  interval,  and  when  Stambuloff  entered  upon 
his  long  career  as  practical  ruler  of  Bulgaria  he  included 
Stoiloff  among  his  colleagues.  But  as  time  went  on, 
the  disciple  became  dissatisfied  with  his  master,  and 
when  Stambuloff  fell,  stepped  comfortably  into  his  shoes. 
Since  then  he  has  retained  his  place  by  subservience  in 
all  things  to  the  will  of  the  Prince.  No  one  regards  him 
as  a  great  statesman,  but  he  is  a  pliant  clerk,  who  knows 
the  best  way  to  carry  out  his  master's  orders.  Foreign 
diplomatists  who  have  to  deal  with  him  complain  that 
he  is  shifty  and  untrustworthy.  His  behaviour  in  the 
Philippopolis  murder  case  of  last  year  involved  him  in  a 
very  undignified  quarrel  with  the  Austrian  Government, 
and  his  methods  of  "  managing "  the  elections  are 
certainly  not  one  whit  more  constitutional  than  those 
of  his  predecessor.  In  Bulgaria  the  freedom  of  election 
is  a  transparent  farce  :  voting  urns  are    stuffed   by  the 

466 


in   the  Near  East 

presiding  officials,  and  the  Government  can  always 
ensure  by  fraud  or  violence  the  election  of  its  nominees. 
The  one  person  who  can  get  rid  of  a  Premier  is  the 
Prince,  and  in  spite  of  many  rumours  Prince  Ferdinand 
has  shown  no  disposition  to  dismiss  so  useful  a  minister. 
But  latterly  Dr.  Stoiloff's  health  has  been  so  bad  that  it 
seems  doubtful  whether  he  will  be  able  to  continue 
much  longer  his  official  duties. 

M.  Grekotf  strikes  me  far  more  favourably  than 
any  other  public  man  whom  I  have  met  in  Bulgaria. 
Educated  in  Paris,  whence  he  returned  to  his  own 
country  in  1868,  he  has  all  the  manners  of  a  very 
accomplished  and  polite  Western  statesman.  M.  Grekoff 
approaches  the  discussion  of  public  affairs  in  a  Western 
spirit,  and  enjoys  a  reputation  for  straightforwardness 
not  always  associated  with  the  Oriental  mind.  He  has 
had  large  experience,  particularly  of  foreign  affairs,  which 
should  prove  very  useful  during  the  present  unsettled 
condition  of  affairs  in  the  Near  East.  He,  too,  was  one 
of  the  three  Commissioners  who  set  out  in  1887  in  search 
of  a  Prince,  and  was  selected,  on  account  of  his  tact, 
to  bear  the  unfortunately  futile  letter  to  King  Milan  of 
Servia  by  which  Prince  Alexander  tried  to  stave  off  the 
fratricidal  w^ar  of  1885.  As  Foreign  Minister  during  the 
latter  years  of  the  Stambuloff  Cabinet  he  won  golden 
opinions,  and  he  honourably  distinguished  himself  by 
refusing  to  accept  the  Premiership  on  the  fall  of  his 
chief.  And  when  the  fallen  dictator  was  being  persecuted 
by  the  Government,  M.  Grekoff  had  the  courage  to  go  to 
the  palace  and  tell  the  Prince  that  the  action  of  the 
Ministry  was  illegal.  Of  late  times,  M.  Grekoff,  who  is 
a  well-to-do  man  and  the  nephew  of  a  rich  citizen 
engaged  in  business,  has  found  that  politics,  as  conducted 
in  Bulgaria,  interfere  with  his  own  comfort  and  his 
uncle's  trade.     So  he  has  quietly  stood  aside,  and  devoted 

467 


Travels  and   Politics 

himself  to  his  own  affairs.  But  the  general  opinion  is 
that  he  will  be  forced,  however  unwillingly,  to  take  up 
the  burden  of  office  again  whenever  the  Stoi'loff  Ministry 
falls.  As  he  is  thus  the  coming  man,  his  views  are  of 
special  interest.  As  might  be  expected,  he  is  no  fanatic, 
and  has  no  race  bias,  even  against  the  old  oppressors  of 
his  country,  whose  rule  he  is  old  enough  to  remember. 
"  The  Turks,"  he  told  me,  "  I  mean  the  people,  are  very 
honest  ;  in  money  matters  you  can  always  trust  their 
word  without  any  further  security,  but  the  Turkish 
Government  is  most  vile  and  incompetent."  This  dis- 
tinction between  the  governing  Turks  and  the  people 
is  common  throughout  the  East,  and  may  be  accepted  as 
the  mature  verdict  of  all  unbiassed  persons.  M.  Grekoff 
was  not  in  favour  of  armed  intervention  by  Bulgaria  on 
behalf  of  Greece,  which  he  considers  would  have  caused 
a  blaze  all  over  the  Balkan  Peninsula.  But  he  is  very 
keen  about  railway  extension  in  the  direction  of  Mace- 
donia, and  points  with  pride  to  the  great  material 
progress  effected  at  Sofia  since  he  returned  there  from 
Paris  thirty  years  ago. 

Next  to  these  two  men  the  most  generally  known 
Bulgarian  statesman  is  M.  Nacevic,  with  whom  I  had  a 
lengthy  interview.  M.  Nacevic  is,  in  point  of  experience 
and  statecraft,  ahead  of  all  living  Bulgarians,  but  he  is 
not  trusted,  and  has  been  accused  by  the  Svoboda,  the 
leading  Opposition  newspaper,  of  conniving  at  the 
murder  of  Stambuloff.  It  is  at  any  rate  certain  that  one 
of  the  Macedonians  implicated  in  the  murder  used  to 
frequent  his  house.  Since  then  M.  Nacevic,  whose  last 
tenure  of  'office  was  signalised  by  a  violent  quarrel  with 
ther/;7;6'5  correspondent  on  the  subject  of  the  alleged  atroci- 
ties on  Mussulmans  at  Dospat,  has  fallen  from  power, 
and  has  now,  as  he  informed  me,  ''  no  relations  with  the 
Palace."     An  oldish  man,  whose  beard  is  well  streaked 

468 


in  the  Near  East 

with  grey,  M.  Nacevic  has  played  many  parts  in  his  time, 
and  may  play  more  before  he  has  done  with  politics.  In 
his  youth  he  was  a  violent  revolutionary,  and,  like  many 
such,  has  now  developed  into  a  "  moderate"  man  or  a  Con- 
servative, who  laments  to  you  that  **  it  is  a  great  misfortune 
for  a  country  to  have  a  Radical  policy  dictated  from  the 
streets."  Thanks  to  his  former  position  as  Bulgarian 
representative  at  Vienna,  he  has  acquired  considerable 
knowledge  of  Western  politics,  and  has  a  large  command 
of  its  phrases.  "  Moderation "  and  similar  sentiments 
flow  from  his  tongue  in  fluent  German,  but  his  actions 
have  not  always  been  in  consonance  with  this  language. 
Like  M.  Grekoff,  he  disapproved  the  idea  of  a  Bulgarian 
alliance  with  Greece  against  Turkey  in  the  late  war, 
which,  in  his  opinion,  would  only  have  benefited  Austria 
and  Russia.  Like  many  other  Bulgarians,  he  has  no  love 
for  the  Greeks,  whom  he  regards  as  the  foes  of  his 
country.  He  thinks  it  would  be  a  fatal  mistake  for 
Austria  to  go  down  to  Salonica,  even  in  her  own  interest ; 
but  he  does  not  counsel  a  forward  policy  on  the  part  of 
Bulgaria  in  the  Macedonian  question.  He  admits  that 
the  position  of  the  Bulgarian  Government  is  difficult, 
owing  to  the  presence  of  so  many  Macedonians  in  the 
Principality,  and  the  large  number  of  Macedonian  officers 
in  the  army.  In  that  respect  the  situation  is  analogous 
to  that  of  the  Greek  Ministries,  which  cannot  remain  deaf 
to  the  appeals  of  so  many  Cretans  resident  in  Athens. 
But  he  maintains  that  what  is  wanted  for  the  present  is 
that  Turkey  should  carry  out  the  reforms  in  Macedonia 
which  were  promised  to  that  country  equally  with  Crete 
by  the  23rd  article  of  the  Berlin  Treaty.  Like  every  one 
else,  he  points  out  the  utter  rottenness  of  Ottoman  rule 
in  that  part  of  the  world  ;  though  it  is  rather  comical  to 
see  M.  Nacevic,  of  all  people,  holding  up  his  hands  in 
pious  horror  over  the  atrocities  perpetrated  in  Macedonia. 

469 


Travels  and  Politics 

Oil  is  titlcrit  Gmcclios,  dc  scdiiiouc  qiiercntcs?  He  thinks  the 
Sultan  should  govern  with  the  aid  of  the  "  Young  Turks," 
who — and  here  the  ex-revolutionary  draws  upon  his  own 
experiences — would  be  "  less  extreme  in  power  than  in 
opposition."  The  Sultan,  he  says,  does  not  trust  Prince 
Ferdinand,  because  the  latter  is  so  devoted  to  Russia,  and 
thus  the  relations  between  the  Prince  and  his  suzerain  are 
not  so  good  as  in  the  days  of  Stambuloff.  M.  Nacevic 
here  hits  upon  the  great  and  real  service  which  he  has 
rendered  to  Bulgaria,  for  whatever  his  faults  in  all  other 
respects,  he  has  consistently  opposed  Russian  influence. 
The  Prince,  on  the  other  hand,  is  a  Russophil,  "  because 
he  does  not  know  Bulgarian  history,  or  perhaps  even 
modern  history."  But  though  M.  Nacevic  is  no  friend  to 
an  active  crusade  in  Macedonia,  he  supports  the  policy  of 
sending  Bulgarian  bishops  there,  not  for  any  love  of 
these  ecclesiastics,  who  are  sometimes  persecuted  by  the 
Bulgarians  at  home,  but  because  in  the  present  state  of 
affairs  they  are  the  sole  protectors  of  the  Bulgarians  in 
Macedonia.  But  M.  Nacevic  is  hopeful  of  an  improve- 
ment in  the  condition  of  Turkey  in  the  long  run,  for,  he 
says,  with  an  allusion  to  the  struggle  between  Chma  and 
Japan,  "Western  civilisation  must  advance  in  the  East." 

In  one  respect  Bulgaria  has  set  an  excellent  example 
to  many  more  advanced  nations — in  her  treatment  of  the 
Mussulmans  who  remained  in  the  country  after  the 
emancipation.  The  Government  has  done  all  it  can,  by 
educational  endowments  and  other  means,  to  make  them 
contented  with  the  new  order  of  things.  There  are  in 
Bulgaria  not  only  pure  Turks,  but  also  Bulgarian  Mussul- 
mans who  embraced  the  creed  of  the  conquerors  at  the 
Turkish  conquest,  and  to  this  day  speak  the  purest 
Bulgarian,  because  they  were  least  molested  by  the 
Osmanli  authorities.  These  Poniaks,  as  they  are  called, 
resemble    the    Mussulman    Serbs    of    Bosnia    and    the 

470 


in   the   Near   East 

Mohammedan  Greeks  of  Crete.  They  are,  however, 
diminishing  in  numbers,  though  still  found  at  Vraca, 
Lovca,  and  elsewhere,  because  the  Turks  induce  them  to 
emigrate  for  fear  of  their  re-conversion  to  Christianity. 
Many  have  gone  to  Brusa,  and  are  endeavouring  to 
transplant  to  Asia  Minor  the  rose  industry,  which 
flourishes  at  Kazanlik.  The  hard  fact  remains  that  the 
Mussulman  prefers  to  live  under  a  bad  Mohammedan 
government  than  under  a  civilised  Christian  rule.  So 
Bulgaria  is  losing,  as  Montenegro  has  lost,  many  of  her 
most  useful  inhabitants,  from  no  fault  whatever  of  her 
own.  As  a  Thessalian  Mussulman  once  said  :  "  I  have 
left  Thessaly,  not  because  the  Greek  Government  was 
unfair  to  me,  but  because  I  could  not  marry  my 
daughters  there." 

To  sum  up,  the  great  evil  here,  as  in  Greece,  is 
politics.  Everything  is  apt  to  be  made  a  subject  of 
political  intrigue.  Thus  even  the  Museum  at  Sofia  has 
been  crippled  because  one  Ministry  voted  a  large  sum  for 
fitting  up  one  building  to  receive  the  collection  of 
antiquities,  and  another,  for  party  reasons,  voted  funds 
for  adopting  another,  and  far  less  suitable,  place  for  the 
purpose.  Thus,  the  Museum  is  split  into  two  parts, 
and  money  which  might  have  been  expended  on  it  has 
been  wasted.  That  is  only  one  example  of  what  harm 
politics  do  in  these  young  Oriental  countries.  What 
Bulgaria  wants  is  firm  government,  equal-handed  justice, 
and  a  Prince  who  will  be  frankly  democratic  in  his  man- 
ners and  economical  in  his  expenditure. 

The  Bulgarian  capital  is  only  thirty  miles  from  the 
Servian  frontier,  so  that  in  ordinary  times  the  journey  is 
soon  over.  But  the  terrific  floods  had  still  left  their  mark 
upon  the  line  in  the  shape  of  a  dislocated  bridge  and  a 
damaged  tunnel,  so  that  all  express  trains  were  suspended 
and  the  rate  of  progression  did  not  exceed  fifteen  miles 

471 


Travels  and   Politics 

an  hour.  So  we  had  ample  leisure  to  study  in  the  tropical 
sun  tlie  picturesque  villages  of  Slivnica  and  Tsaribrod 
and  the  Dragoman  Pass,  all  famous  points  in  the  Serbo- 
Bulgarian  War  of  1885,  when  the  Servian  army  was 
defeated  and  driven  back  when  it  was  within  ly^  miles 
of  the  Bulgarian  capital.  As  we  passed,  Slivnica  looked 
the  very  picture  of  peace,  as  its  red  roofs  peered  out  of 
the  trees,  while  the  women,  in  their  picturesque  blue 
aprons,  were  making  the  hay,  the  perfume  of  which  filled 
the  air.  Bulgarian  officials  tell  me  that  Servia  has  never 
forgotten  Slivnica,  and  is  anxious  to  avenge  it  whenever  a 
favourable  opportunity  arises.  It  is  indeed  a  great  mis- 
fortune that  these  two  nations  should  fritter  away  their 
energies  in  trying  to  undermine  one  another  instead  of 
uniting  against  their  common  foe — the  Turk;  their  mutual 
jealousies  led  to  his  conquests  in  the  Balkan  Peninsula, 
and  the  same  reason  prevents  their  success  in  Macedonia. 
It  is  for  this  reason,  too,  that  one  is  reluctantly  forced  to 
the  conclusion  that  the  Balkan  Confederation,  of  which 
the  late  M.  Tricoupis  and  the  ex-regent  of  Servia,  M.  Ristic, 
were  the  most  prominent  advocates,  is  impossible.  Even 
the  less  ambitious  project  of  a  triple  alliance  between  the 
three  Slav  states  of  the  Peninsula  seems  impracticable. 
Yet  the  Serbs  and  the  Bulgars  ought  to  pull  together.  A 
Servian  soldier  suddenly  placed  in  Bulgaria  would  be 
able  to  understand  the  language  tolerably  well  in  spite  of 
the  differences  between  the  two  tongues.  The  Servian 
gymnastic  society,  called  after  the  famous  Tsar  Dusan, 
sends  envoys,  one  of  whom  I  met  wearing  the  Servian 
Bulgarian,  and  Russian  colours,  to  enlist  Bulgarian  mem- 
bers. Occasionally,  too,  large  excursions  are  organised 
from  one  capital  to  the  other,  and  orators  toast,  after  an 
excellent  meal,  the  blessings  of  fraternity.  The  editor  of 
the  Mir,  who  has  spent  a  considerable  time  in  Belgrade, 
has  done  something  to  promote  the  friendship  of  these 

472 


in  the  Near  East 

rivals,  and  when  M.  Simic  was  Servian  Prime  Minister,  he 
was  understood  to  desire  better  relations  with  Bulgaria. 
"  It  is  unfortunate  that  Servia,"  as  a  Servian  editor  once 
remarked  to  me,  "  should  cherish  dreams  of  territorial 
expansion  instead  of  paying  attention  to  her  own  affairs." 
But  she  cannot  forget  her  past  greatness,  the  memory  of 
which  is  perhaps  the  greatest  obstacle  to  her  present 
welfare. 

The  political  condition  of  Servia  is  indeed  by  no  means 
satisfactory ;  here,  as  in  Greece,  party  has  been  the  bane 
of  the  common  weal.  Representative  government,  too, 
has  been  reduced  to  a  farce  ;  for  at  the  elections  of  this 
year  hardly  a  single  Opposition  candidate  was  allowed 
to  be  returned.  Ex-King  Milan  is  a  man  whom  no 
one  can  respect,  and  his  return  to  his  country  and 
appointment  as  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  army  have 
caused  grave  apprehensions.  Ex-Queen  Natalie  is 
generally  recognised  as  a  political  intriguer,  though  she 
undoubtedly  does  good  by  her  patronage  of  charitable 
institutions  whenever  she  is  in  Belgrade.  As  for  the 
young  King,  opinions  differ  considerably ;  some  regard 
him,  since  his  coups  d'cfat  and  his  suspension  of  the 
Constitution  in  favour  of  that  which  had  previously 
existed,  as  a  man  of  blood  and  iron.  His  silly  intrigue 
with  a  second-rate  Hungarian  music-hall  singer  showed, 
at  least,  that  he  was  not  only  human,  but  incautious. 
It  is  also  said  that  his  father  has  in  his  pocket  a 
certificate  from  a  Vienna  doctor  to  the  effect  that  the 
young  King  is  incapable  of  ruling,  so  that  the  artful 
Milan  can  depose  his  son  and  return  to  the  throne 
whenever  he  chooses.  No  one  can  help  feeling  sorry 
for  a  young  sovereign  who,  as  he  pathetically  remarked 
on  a  visit  to  Montenegro,  has  never  known  the  pleasures 
of  home  life.  His  various  efforts  at  obtaining  a  consort 
have  so  far  been  unsuccessful,  although  his  father,  in  a 

473 


Travels  and   Politics 

recently  published  letter,  has  declared  his  willingness 
to  accept  the  daughter  of  an  American  millionaire  as 
future  Queen  of  Servia.  More  than  once  conspiracies 
have  threatened  King  Alexander's  existence,  and  some 
have  prophesied  of  him,  as  of  Prince  Ferdinand,  that 
he  will  share  the  normal  fate  of  Balkan  rulers,  who 
rarely  end  their  days  in  the  peaceful  possession  of  their 
thrones.  Thus  the  last  Prince  of  Roumania  and  the 
last  Prince  of  Bulgaria  were  forced  to  abdicate  ;  the  last 
Prince  of  jVIontenegro  was  murdered,  as  was  also  Prince 
Michael  of  Servia ;  while  the  last  King  of  Greece  and  the 
last  King  of  Servia  were  both  obliged  to  retire. 

One  thing  most  Servians  assert,  that  the  relations 
between  them  and  Austria- Hungary  can  never  be  good. 
Quite  apart  from  the  Bosnian  question  there  is  that  of  the 
pig.  Servia's  principal  product  is  swine,  as  one  soon  sees 
for  oneself ;  for  every  meadow  and  every  valley  are  full  of 
herds  of  little  porkers  quietly  feeding,  and  the  great  hero 
of  modern  Servian  history,  Black  George,  was  himself  a 
swine-herd.  Austria-Hungary  being  the  only  outlet  for 
Servian  pork,  the  pig-dealers  are  entirely  at  the  mercy  of 
their  great  neighbour.  There  are  Servians  who  believe, 
as  one  of  them  said  to  me,  that  "Austria-Hungary  wishes 
to  annex  us  either  politically,  as  was  the  case  between 
17 1 8  and  1739,  or  commercially."  Hence  the  Servian 
Foreign  OfHce  is  apt  to  have  either  pro-Russian  or 
pro-Austrian  leanings,  and  the  domestic  jars  of  the  ex- 
King  and  his  consort  were  aggravated  by  the  fact  that 
he  was  an  Austrian  puppet  and  she  a  Russian  agent.  At 
present  not  a  few  people  in  Servia  desire  that  Great 
Britain  should  show  more  interest  in  their  country, 
especially  in  regard  to  commercial  matters.  They  argue 
that  as  we  have  no  political  aims  in  Servia  it  would  be 
better  for  them  to  rely  on  us  than  on  Austria  or  Russia. 
It  is  certainly  a  pity  that  not  a  single  London  newspaper 

474 


in  the  Near  East 

has  a  correspondent  of  its  own  in  residence  at  Belgrade, 
for  it  is  conceivable  that  British  men  of  business  might  be 
glad  to  have  trustworthy  information  about  the  state  of  the 
country  and  its  prospects  as  a  field  for  investment. 

Servia  is  naturally  a  very  fertile  land,  and  with  good 
and  steady  government  might  become  extremely  prosper- 
ous. As  one  traverses  it  from  end  to  end  one  is  struck  by 
the  fruitful  fields,  the  rich  pastures  and  the  smiling  land- 
scape. The  valley  of  the  Morava  is  particularly  rich, 
while  the  vines  of  Negotin,  in  years  when  there  is  no 
phylloxera,  have  gained  a  well-deserved  reputation. 
Everywhere  the  peasants,  whose  blue  cloth  caps  contrast 
pleasantly  with  the  black  Bulgarian  halpnk,  are  to  be  seen 
hard  at  work  in  the  fields.  To  the  tourist  Servia  offers 
much  that  is  pretty,  and  at  least  one  piece  of  magnificent 
scenery — the  majestic  gorge  of  the  Nisava  river,  where 
the  rocks  almost  meet,  and  the  train  skirts  the  foaming 
bed  of  the  stream  right  under  the  face  of  the  projecting 
cliff.  Here  and  there,  too,  on  the  tops  of  hills,  stand  out 
the  ruins  of  some  ancient  castle,  famous  in  the  Servian 
ballads,  such  as  the  Tower  of  Tudor,  near  Stolac,  where, 
after  the  great  defeat  of  the  Serbs  at  Kossovo,  one  brave 
chieftain  held  out  for  long  against  the  Turkish  hosts,  till, 
finding  all  v/as  lost,  he  flung  his  sword  into  the  Morava, 
and  jumped,  with  his  wife  in  his  arms,  into  its  yellow 
waters.  But  of  all  the  monuments  of  Servia  none  is  more 
interesting  than  the  famous  Tower  of  Skulls  at  Nis,  which 
the  modern  Serbs  have  wisely  preserved  as  a  relic  of 
Turkish  tyranny.  On  May  Day,  1809,  during  the  struggle 
for  independence,  a  body  of  Serbs  blew  up  a  fort  near  Nis 
rather  than  surrender  to  the  Turks.  The  Turkish  Pasha, 
desirous  of  making  an  example  which  would  remind  his 
Servian  subjects  of  the  fate  of  their  compatriots,  built  a 
tower  just  outside  Nis,  and  fixed  the  skulls  of  the  victims 
into  the  masonry  of  the  wall.     There  were  originally  952 

475 


Travels  and  Politics 

of  these  ghastly  trophies,  arranged  outside  the  tower  in 
56  rows  of  17  skulls  each.  But  when  I  drove  out  to 
inspect  the  tower  I  found  only  one  skull  still  sticking  to 
the  masonry,  though  long  rows  of  empty  holes  weie 
silent  witnesses  to  what  had  once  been  there.  A  white 
chapel  now  covers  the  remains  of  the  tower,  and  the  rest 
of  the  skulls  have  been  awarded  Christian  burial. 

Nis  is  the  second  largest  town  in  Servia,  and,  now  that 
the  lines  have  been  laid  to  Constantinople  on  the  one  side 
and  to  Salonica  on  the  other,  a  very  important  railway 
junction.  It  is  a  clean,  straggling  place,  containing  little 
of  interest  but  an  old  Turkish  konak  or  palace,  with  a 
fine  garden,  where  ex- King  Milan  used  sometimes  to  reside. 
But  the  Western  traveller  does  not  often  stay  at  Nis,  and 
the  German-speaking  waiter  of  the  hotel  complained  to 
me  with  bitterness  that  the  guests  were  all  oricnfalisclies 
Gcsiiidel  {"  Oriental  rag,  tag  and  bobtail ").  The  poor  fellow 
felt  quite  out  of  his  element  in  this  place,  which  is  destined 
one  day  to  be  a  stepping-stone  on  the  way  to  India, 
whenever  Salonica  becomes  the  great  port  of  embarkation 
for  the  Far  East.  But  ere  that,  the  Servian  railway,  the 
property  of  the  State,  must  be  improved.  Everv  year  the 
floods  wash  part  of  it  away,  and  in  the  full  blaze  of  the 
mid-day  sun  we  had  to  dismount  from  the  train  and  walk 
with  our  hand-baggage  over  the  side  of  a  hill  because  the 
tunnel  beneath  it  had  fallen  in.  It  is  calculated  that  the 
repairs  of  this  tunnel  must  have  occupied,  from  first  to 
last,  five  months,  and  this,  too,  on  the  main  route  between 
Constantinople  and  the  West.  Truly  in  the  East  they 
move  slowly.  A  British  engineer  would  have  put  all  right 
in  a  month,  on  one  of  our  great  Northern  lines  of  railway. 

Here  at  Belgrade  one  is  at  the  extreme  Western  limit  of 
the  Orient,  the  point  at  which  West  and  East  join.  No 
one,  looking  now  at  this  historic  city,  which  has  braved 
more  sieges  than  almost  any  other  in  the  world,  would 

476 


in  the  Near  East 

believe  that  it  has  been  in  Turkish  hands  within  the 
present  century,  and  that  the  last  Turkish  soldier  quitted 
its  renowned  fortress  only  thirty  years  ago.  To-day  "  the 
white  city,"  as  Belgrade  is  justly  named,  contains  not  a 
trace  of  Ottoman  rule  in  the  architecture  of  its  streets. 
It  boasts  an  electric  tram,  a  splendid  park,  a  fine  public 
garden,  and  an  excellent "  European  "  hotel.  Not  a  mosque 
or  a  minaret  remains  standing,  and  all  the  articles  in  the 
shops  are  of  Western  manufacture.  Yet  in  spite  of  its 
long  history,  and  its  unique  position  in  bygone  days  as 
the  battle  ground  of  the  Cross,  and  the  Crescent,  modern 
Belgrade  is  very  commonplace.  Its  streets  are  clean  and 
its  houses  well-built,  but  an  air  of  dulness  pervades  the 
place.  In  the  early  afternoon  you  might  fancy  your- 
self in  a  city  of  the  dead.  It  is  only  in  the  evening  that 
Belgrade  wakes  up.  Then  the  beau  nioiulc  goes  to  take 
the  air  and  admire  such  sunsets  as  you  will  see  nowhere 
else,  from  the  Gardens  of  Kalimegdan,  overlooking  the 
Save,  where  gorgeously  decorated  officers  in  big  caps  and 
picturesque  matrons  in  zouave  jackets  of  satin  or  velvet, 
with  their  hair  plaited  round  their  red  caps  in  true 
Servian  style,  promenade  about  and  make  obeisance  to  the 
young  King,  wearing  the  straw  hat  of  the  European 
tourist,  and  walking  among  his  subjects  quite  at  his  ease. 
Or,  if  you  would  see  the  best  that  Belgrade  can  show,  go 
out  to  the  lovely  w'oods  of  Topcider,  where  Milos,  the 
second  founder  of  Servia,  lived  his  simple  life,  and  where 
poor  Prince  Michael  died  by  an  assassin's  hand.  All  else 
here  is  modern  and  uninteresting,  and  you  feel  how  much 
less  romantic  is  the  slim  Serb  of  Belgrade,  in  his  "  Euro- 
pean" dress,  than  the  majestic  mountaineer  of  Montenegro, 
or  the  stalwart  fisherman  of  Dalmatia,  in  his  national 
garb — -both  Serbs  like  him,  but,  unlike  him,  never 
subjected  to  the  tyranny  of  the  Turk,  or  to  that  other 
tyranny  of  modern  fashion.     But  in  judging  of  Servia,  as 

477 


Travels  and  Politics  in  the  Near  East 

of  Bulgaria,  one  must  always  remember  that  they  are  of 
yesterday — for  twenty  or  thirty  years  are  as  yesterday  in 
the  life  of  a  nation.  And  so  at  Belgrade  we  bid  farewell 
to  the  Near  East — to  the  excitable  Greek,  the  plodding 
Bulgarian,  and  the  volatile  Serb,  Across  the  Save  lie 
Hungary  and  Western  civilisation.  But  from  the  Near 
Eastern  question  we  Westerns  shall  never  escape,  until 
the  last  Turkish  othcial  has  left  Europe  for  ever. 


478 


CHAPTER    XIV 

THE   GREAT   POWERS    IX   THE    NEAR   EAST 

EVER  since,  at  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
the  wave  of  Ottoman  power  began  to  ebb,  the 
future  of  the  Balkan  Peninsula  has  been  an  important 
question  for  the  great  Powers  of  Europe.  Various  at- 
tempts to  solve  it  have  been  made  since  then,  the  last 
being  that  which  was  solemnly  inaugurated  by  the 
"collective  wisdom"  of  Europe,  at  the  Berlin  Congress 
twenty  years  ago.  It  is  obvious  that  no  final  solution  of 
the  difficulty  has  yet  been  found,  and  Prince  Bismarck's 
prophecy  that  an  Oriental  crisis  might  be  expected  at 
more  or  less  regular  intervals  seems  likely  to  be  fulfilled. 
Without  being  so  rash  as  to  venture  upon  that  most  futile 
of  pursuits,  a  rearrangement  of  the  map  of  South- 
Eastern  Europe,  it  may  be  well  to  sum  up  briefly  the 
various  opinions  which  are  held  as  to  the  future  of  the 
Balkan  Peninsula. 

Broadly  speaking,  there  are  four  main  theories  with 
regard  to  the  settlement  of  the  Near  East.  The  first  of 
these  is  that  a  Confederation  of  all  the  Balkan  States  will 
be  formed  and  thus  a  seventh  Great  Power,  organised 
somewhat  on  the  lines  of  the  Swiss  Confederation,  will 
take  its  place  in  the  European  system.  Each  of  the 
various  States  would,  on  this  hypothesis,  continue  to 
manage  its  own  affairs,  while  matters  which  concerned 
the    whole    Confederation    would    be    discussed    by    the 

479 


Travels  and   Politics 

whole  Confederate  body.  M.  Ristic,  tlie  most  eminent  of 
Servian  statesmen,  actually  went  so  far  some  years  ago  as 
to  suggest  the  inclusion  of  Turkey,  transformed  by  a 
miracle  into  a  constitutional  State,  within  this  Confedera- 
tion. To  idealists  who  desire  to  see  each  small  nation- 
ality governing  itself,  a  Balkan  Confederation  naturally 
appears  the  best  solution  of  the  Eastern  Question.  Even 
practical  diplomatists,  like  the  late  Sir  William  White, 
have  been  of  opinion  that  the  small  Balkan  States  might 
prove  the  most  effectual  barrier  between  Russia  and 
Constantinople.  I  must  admit  that  I  shared  this  view  in 
"  The  Balkans,"  but  subsequent  study  of  the  question 
has  led  me  to  regard  this  ideal  solution  as  unpractical. 
At  no  time  in  their  history  have  the  Balkan  nationalities 
been  united  together,  and  the  saying  of  Herodotus  is 
unfortunately  true  to-day,  that  the  peoples  of  the  Thracian 
peninsula  are  not  likely  to  join  for  any  common  purpose. 
It  was  the  mutual  jealousies  of  the  Balkan  peoples  which 
allowed  the  Turks  to  conquer  the  peninsula  in  the  four- 
teenth and  fifteenth  centuries,  and  the  same  motives 
unfortunately  exist  to-day.  The  fratricidal  war  between 
Servia  and  Bulgaria  in  1885,  the  continued  animosity 
between  those  two  neighbours,  their  utter  inability  to 
arrive  at  any  satisfactory  adjustment  of  their  claims  in 
Macedonia,  and  their  constant  readiness  to  make  bargains 
with  the  Sultan  in  order  to  secure  some  temporary  advan- 
tage over  one  another,  are  all  signs  which  cannot  be 
overlooked.  The  present  policy  of  Bulgaria,  as  I  am 
informed  on  the  highest  authority,  is  a  friendly  under- 
standing with  the  Sultan,  who  with  consummate  skill 
plays  off  one  small  Balkan  State  against  the  other,  just 
as  he  makes  capital  out  of  the  mutual  jealousies  of  the 
great  European  Powers.  Divide  et  iuipcni  has  always 
been  the  maxim  of  Turkish  policy  alike  in  regard  to  the 
Concert  of  Europe  and  to  the  smaller  neighbours  of  the 

480 


in   the  Near   East 

Sultan,  The  principle  is  always  the  same ;  the  only 
difference  is  that  bishoprics  in  Macedonia  form  the  apple 
of  discord  which  Abdul  Hamid  throws  among  the  Balkan 
States,  while  trade  facilities  are  offered  to  the  most 
favoured  European  nation.  Owing  to  these  jealousies 
between  Servia  and  Bulgaria,  and  the  distrust  which 
has  long  existed  between  the  reigning  family  of  Servia 
and  that  of  Montenegro,  each  of  which  desires  the  hrst 
place,  the  scheme  of  a  triple  alliance  between  the  three 
Slav  States  of  the  peninsula  is  likely  to  collapse  as  soon 
as  it  begins  to  be  translated  from  the  language  of  after- 
dinner  speeches  into  facts.  But  if  this  comparatively 
modest  plan  be  impossible,  how  much  more  impracticable 
must  be  the  larger  scheme  of  a  Confederation  embracing 
not  merely  the  Slavs  of  the  Balkan  Peninsula,  but  all  its 
inhabitants  !  The  late  Greco-Turkish  war,  for  example, 
showed  very  clearly  that  Bulgaria  would  not  assist  Greece 
against  Turkey.  Before  that  war  began  the  Bulgarian 
agent  at  Athens  was  instructed  by  his  Government  to  try 
to  conclude  an  arrangement  between  the  two  countries 
and  Servia  in  respect  of  Macedonia.  Greece  declined  to 
do  anything  at  that  time,  Servia  had  nothing  to  offer,  and 
the  natural  result  was  that  the  favourable  moment  was 
allowed  to  pass  ;  Greece  fought  alone,  and  the  Turks 
were  allowed  to  send  their  army  to  the  front  without  any 
interference  from  Bulgaria.  This  incident  is  very  charac- 
teristic, and  may  be  supplemented  by  the  attitude  of 
Roumania  during  the  late  war.  From  the  hrst  the  Rou- 
manian Government  and  its  proteges  in  Macedonia  were 
friendly  to  the  Turks  from  selfish  motives,  just  as  after 
the  Armenian  massacres  Roumania  was  most  unwilling 
to  receive  Armenian  refugees.  Moreover,  in  spite  of  the 
meetings  between  King  Carol  and  Prince  Ferdinand,  the 
Bulgarians  do  not  seem  likely  to  forget  the  fact  that  the 
Bulgarian-speaking  provmce  of  the  Dobrudza  was  handed 

481  2 1 


Travels  and   Politics 

over  to  Roumania  in  1878.  There  are  frequent  com- 
plaints in  the  Bulgarian  press  that  these  Bulgarian 
subjects  of  King  Carol  are  badly  treated,  while  on  the 
other  hand  the  Roumanians  are  careful  to  fortify  this 
part  of  their  frontier.  Finally,  no  scheme  of  Confede- 
ration has  been  devised  which  would  successfully  solve 
the  Albanian  difficulty.  To  create  Albania  into  a  sepa- 
rate principality  would  be  impossible,  owing  to  the 
different  religions,  the  tribal  jealousies,  and  the  centri- 
fugal tendencies  which  characterise  the  Albanian  people. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  Albanians  would  resist  the  parti- 
tion of  their  country  by  the  Balkan  States,  and  most 
probably  would  resist  it  successfully.  Thus  on  all 
grounds,  historical,  political,  and  ethnological,  a  Confe- 
deration of  the  Balkan  races  appears  to  be  beyond  the 
scope  of  practical  politics. 

Similar  difficulties  beset  the  fulfilment  of  the  "great 
ideas  "  in  which  the  Serbs,  the  Bulgarians,  and  the  Greeks 
are  wont  to  indulge.  It  is  obvious  that  any  attempt  to 
revive  the  big  Servian  Empire  of  Dusan,  the  great  Bul- 
garian Empires  of  Simeon,  Samuel,  and  John  Asen,  or  the 
Byzantine  Empire  would  involve  the  absorption  of  the 
other  Balkan  states  within  the  dominions  of  the  successful 
nationality.  This  could  only  be  accomplished  by  a  san- 
guinary war,  which  would  not  only  rage  throughout  the 
whole  peninsula,  but  would  certainly  extend  to  Western 
Europe.  Moreover,  recent  events  have  clearly  proved 
that  no  Balkan  State  is  strong  enough  to  solve  the  Eastern 
Question  by  itself,  but  that  the  Great  Powers  must  neces- 
sarily have  a  say  in  any  solution.  That  either  Austria  or 
Russia,  the  two  Powers  most  directly  interested  in  the 
penmsula,  would  assist  in  the  formation  of  any  such 
Balkan  Empire  is  naturally  absurd.  Up  to  a  certain 
point  Russia  has  always  been  willing  to  favour  Slav 
aspirations  in  the  Balkans.     But  nothing  enraged  her  so 

482 


in   the   Near   East 

much  as  the  striking  success  of  Stambuloft,  who  suc- 
ceeded in  making  Bulgaria  entirely  independent  of 
Russian  aid.  On  all  grounds,  then,  the  rehabilitation  of 
the  Servian,  Bulgarian  and  Greek  Empires  of  the  Middle 
Ages  is  impracticable.  No  one  Balkan  State  is  strong 
enough  to  coerce  all  the  others,  and,  if  it  were,  the  Gi'eat 
Powers  would  not  sanction  such  an  achievement. 

There  are  persons  sanguine  enough  to  believe  that  a 
reformed  and  regenerated  Turkey  will  provide  the  neces- 
sary solution  of  the  Eastern  difticulty.  The  Turkish 
victories  of  last  year,  over  a  weak  and  unprepared 
adversary,  have  revived  this  time-honoured  theory.  The 
Turks  are  undoubtedly  a  very  military  people,  and  the 
Turkish  soldier  is,  in  the  opinion  of  military  experts,  the 
best  food  for  powder  in  the  world.  But  in  these  days 
great  nations  are  not  kept  together  by  soldiers  alone  ; 
and  in  every  other  department,  except  that  of  diplomacy, 
in  which  the  jealousies  of  their  opponents  usually  secure 
them  easy  victories,  the  Turks  are  singularly  deficient. 
No  man  has  had  a  larger  experience  of  Turkish  adminis- 
tration than  Yon  der  Goltz  Pasha,  who,  both  as  a  German 
and  a  former  Turkish  employe,  might  be  expected  to 
regard  the  Turkish  Government  with  favour.  Yet  no  man 
has  been  more  severe  on  the  corruption,  incapacitv,  and 
indolence  which  prevail  in  official  circles  throughout 
Turkey.  At  rare  intervals  during  the  present  century 
Turkey  has  produced  a  really  great  statesman  with  en- 
lightened ideas,  such  as  Reschid  Pa-sha,  Fuad  Pasha  and 
Alidhat  Pasha,  but  the  examples  of  these  eminent  men  are 
not  encouraging,  and  the  second  of  them  once  jokingly 
remarked  that  Turkey  must  be  the  strongest  of  nations, 
because  she  still  managed  to  survive,  in  spite  of  the  fact 
that  every  Turkish  official  did  his  best  to  ruin  his  country. 
There  is  no  instance  in  history  of  a  nation  which  has  at 
one  time  attained  great  magnificence,  and  which  has  then 

4«3 


Travels   and   Politics 

declined  and  dwindled  away,  recovering  for  a  second  time 
its  former  splendour.     For  two  centuries  Turkey  has  been 
steadily  going  back.     During  the  present  century  alone 
she  has  completely  lost  Greece,  Thessaly  (w^ith  the  ex- 
ception of  the  strategic  points  retroceded  by  the  Treaty 
of  last  December),  Roumania,  and  Servia  ;  she  has  had 
to  cede  territory  to  Montenegro  ;  while  Poti,  Kars,  and 
Batoum    have    passed    from    her    to    Russia  ;      she   has 
practically    forfeited   Bulgaria,    Bosnia   and    the    Herce- 
govina,  Cyprus,  and  Egypt  ;  Samos  only  belongs  to  her 
by   a    fiction  ;    and    Crete    is    likely  to  receive  practical 
independence.      Thus   the    nation    which    in    1683    was 
knocking  at  the  walls  of  Vienna  has  now  shrunk  far  to 
the  south  of  the  Balkans,  and  has  also  receded  in  Asia. 
While  the  Turkish  Empire  has  thus  been  "consolidated," 
a   candid    friend,    like  Von    de   Goltz    Pasha,   advocates 
the  further  elimination  of  Turkey  from  Europe   by  the 
removal  of    the    Turkish    capital    to    Konieh,    Kaisarieh, 
or  Damascus,   so   as  to    remove    it    from   all    European 
complications.     The  decadence  of  Turkey  is  also  notice- 
able in  the  fact  that  the  great  and    warlike    Sultans    of 
the   past   have    left   no    successors.      Abdul    Hamid    II. 
is  undoubtedly  a  very  clever  diplomatist,  but  he  either 
does    not    possess,    or    does    not    deem    it    prudent     to 
exercise,  the  slightest  administrative  qualities.     His  sole 
method  of    managing  his  dominions  is  that  of  playing 
off  Christians  against  Mussulmans,    and  one  nationality 
against    another.      Thus    in    Asia    the    Armenians    are 
sacrificed   to   the     Kurds,    in    Europe   tiie    Servians   are 
sacrificed  to  the  Albanians,  and  all  over  the  Empire  the 
welfare  of  the  State  is  sacrificed  to  the  personal  aims  of 
its    sovereign.      Nothing    but    an    impartial    European 
administration     could     effectually     govern     an    Empire 
composed  of  so  many  hostile  sects  and  races.     The  task 
is  all  the  more  difhcult  since  the  creation  of  independent 

484 


in   the   Near   East 

Balkan  States,  each  of  which  has  numbers  of  compatriots 
still  under  Turkish  rule.  Thus  the  Servians,  Bulgarians, 
Greeks,  and  Roumanians  of  Turkey  look  for  redress, 
not  to  Constantinople,  but  to  Belgrade,  Sofia,  Athens,  and 
Bucharest.  Alone  among  the  oppressed  Christian  races  of 
Turkey  the  Armenians  have  no  independent  state  of  the 
same  race  as  themselves  to  which  to  appeal.  And  this  fact, 
coupled  with  their  unwarlike  character  and  their  com- 
mercial prosperity,  naturally  made  them  the  most  con- 
venient victims  of  his  Majesty's  bludgeon-men.  From  time 
to  time  Europe  is  deluded  by  the  promise  of  reforms, 
and  prominent  statesmen  who  visit  Constantinople  with 
projects  for  the  reformation  of  Turkey  in  their  pockets 
find  an  attentive  hearing  from  the  Sultan,  who  on  their 
departure  from  his  presence  lights  his  cigarette  with  the 
draft  which  they  have  ingenuously  laid  before  him.  Of 
all  the  futile  nostrums  prescribed  for  the  salvation  of 
Turkey  that  of  "  reforms "  is  the  worst,  A  resident  in 
Turkey,  who  possesses  an  almost  unique  knowledge  of 
the  country,  once  remarked  to  me,  "  There  is  no  hope  of 
reform  for  Turkey  whatever  ;  it  is  idle  to  talk  about 
reforms  here."  Paper  propositions  are  always  welcome 
to  Turkish  officials,  because  they  supply  material  for  those 
endless  negociations  which  are  the  strength  and  delight 
of  the  Ottoman  Government.  Moreover,  if  reforms  are 
applied,  the  inevitable  result  is  to  bring  the  Christian 
element,  which  is  the  more  progressive,  to  the  top,  and 
thus  Mussulman  jealousy  is  excited,  and  as  in  the  case  of 
the  Pact  of  Halepa,  in  Crete,  the  promised  reforms  are 
cancelled  by  a  sovereign  whose  policy  it  is  to  emphasise 
his  spiritual  position  as  Khalifa  of  the  Mussulmans. 
That  there  have  been  Sultans  in  the  past,  like  Mahmud  II., 
who  were  genuinely  in  favour  of  real,  not  paper,  reforms, 
is  well  known  to  those  who  are  acquainted  with  Turkish 
history  ;  but  in  such  cases  the   well-meaning  efforts  of 

485 


Travels  and   Politics 

the  PdcIisJiali  liavc  only  earned  him  the  title  of  the 
"Giaour  Sultan,"  and  have  met  with  the  most  un- 
compromising opposition  of  Mussulman  conservatism. 

This  religious  sentiment  among  Mussulmans,  stronger 
as  it  is  than  anything  which  we  in  the  West  can  imagine 
in  these  days  of  Laodicean  lukewarmness,  is  perhaps  the 
greatest  obstacle  to  the  entrance  of  Turkey  into  the  circle 
of  civilised  States.  No  one  can  help  admiring  the  devo- 
tion of  the  true  Mussulman  to  his  religion,  a  dev^otion 
which  puts  to  shame  many  Christians.  But  the  fact  that 
it  is  closely  interwoven,  and  indeed  almost  identical, 
with  his  political  opinions  makes  it  almost  impossible 
for  him  to  grasp  Western  ideas.  He  believes  like  a 
character  in  one  of  Auerbach's  novels,  that  "n'ir  liabeii 
mis  111  it  II  use  re  r  gmizeii  Civilisafioii  richtig  in  eiiie  Sack- 
gdsse  geiriiiiit."  He  points  out  sometimes  with  no  little 
justice  that  the  simple  life  of  the  East  is  better  than  the 
degraded  existence  of  many  of  our  great  cities.  He 
does  not  see  the  advantages  of  rapid  travehing,  punctuality, 
and  other  Western  eccentricities,  and  the  European 
invention  to  which  he  attaches  the  highest  importance 
is  that  of  destructive  engines  of  war  w^hich  enable  him 
to  mow  down  his  enemies  with  greater  facility.  The 
one  thing  upon  which  money  is  spent  unstintingly  in 
Turkey  is  the  military  department,  while  the  navy  is 
utterly  neglected,  and  the  ironclads  in  the  Dardanelles 
are  so  rotten  that  a  British  admiral  in  the  Turkish 
service  is  not  allowed  to  inspect  them,  and  the  two 
Turkish  men-of-war  in  Suda  Bay  are  so  covered  with 
barnacles  that  they  cannot  move.  Money  seems  always 
forthcoming  for  barracks  and  the  latest  arms  that  Ger- 
many can  supply.  Further,  what  chance  is  there  that 
upright  and  capable  administrators  will  be  produced 
so  long  as  the  harem  system  continues  ?  The  early 
training  of    boys    who    grow   up  in  such  an  enervating 

486 


in  the  Near  East 

atmosphere,  cannot  fail  to  be  bad,  and  those  who  have 
watched  the  behaviour  of  a  young  Turkish  lad  of  good 
family  cannot  fail  to  wish  that  he  had  been  subjected  to 
the  wholesome  discipline  of  an  English  public  school. 
Education,  too,  is  rendered  extremely  difficult  owing  to 
the  enormous  waste  of  time  involved  in  learning  to 
write  and  read  Turkish.  It  has  been  said  that  the 
Romans  would  have  had  no  time  to  conquer  the 
world  if  they  had  had  to  master  the  intricacies  of  the 
Latin  grammar.  Similarly  the  Turks  have  no  time 
for  acquiring  a  sound  education  because  years  are 
spent  in  grappling  with  the  Turkish  script.  Just  as 
many  young  Englishmen,  after  wasting  ten  years  over 
Greek,  are  unable  to  construe  Xenophon  without  a 
dictionary,  so  comparatively  few  Turks  ever  learn  their 
language  well,  and  I  have  heard  of  instances  where 
educated  Turks  have  taken  documents  in  their  own 
language  to  skilled  European  students  of  Turkish  for 
translation.  It  was  for  this  reason  that  Fuad  Pasha 
tried  to  introduce  Latin  characters  in  place  of  Turkish, 
but  even  the  efforts  of  that  powerful  minister  were  unable 
to  prevail  against  the  inborn  conservatism  of  the  nation. 
But  it  may  be  said  that  the  "  Young  Turks  "  who  have 
been  educated  in  Europe  are  likely  one  day  to  reform 
the  Turkish  Empire  on  European  lines.  The  Sultan 
has  shown  his  fear  of  them  by  cajoling  some  influential 
members  of  the  party  to  Constantinople,  and  by  en- 
deavourmg  to  placate  them  with  minor  posts  in  which 
they  can  do  no  harm.  One  of  their  leaders,  who  had 
been  induced  to  return,  was  lodged  in  a  villa  on  the 
Bosporus,  and,  as  he  seemed  restive,  provided  by  the 
Sultan  with  twelve  Albanian  "  gardeners "  to  look  after 
him.  His  "garden"  was  about  the  size  of  a  pocket- 
handkerchief  !  Their  organ  in  Paris,  the  Meclivercty 
conducted    by    Ahmed    Riza,    still    continues    its    pub- 

487 


Travels   and   Politics 

lication  in  spite  of  the  absurd  prosecution  of  it  in 
the  French  law  courts — a  prosecution  which  only  resulted 
in  a  line  of  a  few  francs.  The  "  Young  Turks "  are 
not  afraid  to  criticise  the  existing  state  of  things,  and 
point  out  that  the  present  Sultan  has  injured  the 
Empire.  But  there  seems  no  prospect  of  their  obtain- 
ing control  of  the  government  at  Constantinople,  and 
even  if  they  could  it  is  doubtful  whether  the  sudden 
transition  from  the  present  state  of  things  to  parlia- 
mentary government  would  be  safe.  It  must  be 
remembered  that  in  Turkey  there  is  practically  no 
aristocracy  except  that  of  officialdom,  and  there  would 
accordingly  be  a  lack  of  suitable  persons  to  work  the 
administration  on  entirely  new  lines.  Midhat's  short- 
lived parliament  did  indeed  give  some  evidences  of 
capacity.  The  member  for  Jerusalem  found  that  he 
had  much  the  same  grievances  as  the  member  for 
Monastir,  and  thus  the  two  extremes  of  the  Empire 
were  discovered  to  be  equally  badly  administered.  But 
education  will  require  to  be  much  better  and  much 
more  generally  diffused  in  Turkey  before  any  form  of 
self-government  by  the  people  can  be  expected  to  succeed. 
The  examples  of  Servia  and  Bulgaria,  where  parliamentary 
elections  have  been  reduced  to  a  farce,  are  not  encourag- 
ing, yet  the  populations  of  those  two  countries  are 
considerably  more  progressive  than  that  of  Turkey. 
Besides,  the  Europeanised  Turk,  who  speaks  French 
and  wears  a  black  coat,  is  apt  to  have  acquired  nothing 
but  the  veneer  of  civilisation,  and  is  sometimes  inferior 
in  character  to  the  common  Turk  of  the  lower  classes, 
who  is  usually  honest  and  firmly  believes  in  the  faith  of 
his  forefathers.  Until,  therefore,  the  w'hole  system  of 
Islam  is  changed  it  seems  hardly  likely  that  a  reformed 
Turkey  will  be  possible. 

It  remains  then  to  consider  whether  the  Great  Powers 

488 


in   the   Near   East 

can  solve  the  Eastern  Question.  The  Balkan  Peninsula 
is  regarded  as  the  wrestling  ground  of  European  diplo- 
matists when  it  is  not  the  cock-pit  of  Eastern  armies. 
Although  only  two  of  the  six  Great  Powers — Austria- 
Hungary  and  Russia — are  directly  and  traditionally 
interested,  owing  to  their  near  neighbourhood,  ni  the 
future  of  the  Peninsula,  all  six  have  certain  political 
or  commercial  interests  in  that  debateable  region.  To 
begin  with  Great  Britain.  Although  the  idea  that  the 
British  flag  is  still  deeply  respected  in  the  Near  East  may 
still  linger  among  stay-at-home  politicians,  those  who  have 
visited  the  Levant  are  speedily  disillusioned.  One  of  the 
most  experienced  representatives  of  our  Government  in 
that  part  of  the  world  remarked  to  me  that  we  had  no 
longer  any  influence  whatever  in  Turkey.  The  vacil- 
lating and  changeable  policy  of  our  Foreign  Oftice  is 
largely  responsible  for  this  lamentable  decline  of  British 
prestige.  Foreigners  find  it  extremely  difficult  tD  under- 
stand the  foreign,  and  especially  the  Eastern  policy  of 
Great  Britain,  and  we  cannot  wonder  at  their  difficulty, 
for  it  seems  a  mass  of  contradictions  to  Englishmen 
themselves.  There  has  been  absolutely  no  continuity 
of  our  Eastern  policy  during  the  present  century.  At 
one  moment  we  are  bringing  about  the  independence  of 
Greece  by  sending  the  Turkish  fleet  to  the  bottom  of  the 
bay  of  Navarino.  Twenty-seven  years  later  we  are 
spending  immense  sums  and  wasting  thousands  of 
lives  in  order  to  protect  the  Turks  against  Russia.  A 
quarter  of  a  century  later  we  are  once  more  on  the  brink 
of  war  on  behalf  of  Turkey,  and  then  to  crown  all  we  are 
calmly  told  by  the  Foreign  Secretary,  that  alike  in  the 
Crimea  and  in  1878,  "  we  put  our  money  on  the  wrong 
horse."  It  might  have  been  imagined,  too,  that  British 
statesmanship  would  have  seen  that  the  big  Bulgaria 
of  the  treaty  of  San  Stefano  instead  of  being  a  Russian 

489 


Travels  and   Politics 

province  would  have  been  the  strongest  bulwark  against 
a  Russian  advance.  The  union  of  Moldavia  and  Wal- 
lachia,  in  spite  of  elaborate  diplomatic  arrangements  to 
keep  them  apart,  might  also  have  suggested  that  the 
artificial  separation  of  Bulgaria  and  Eastern  Roumelia 
could  only  be  a  temporary  expedient.  But  the  humiliating 
act  of  folly  had  yet  to  come.  It  is  generally,  and  rightly, 
maintained,  that  Englishmen  are  not  given  to  the  practise 
of  saying  what  they  do  not  intend  to  perform,  of  talking 
big  and  then  doing  nothing.  Yet  this  was  precisely  the 
system  pursued  by  the  British  Foreign  Office  during  the 
Armenian  difBculty.  Orientals  despise  people  who  talk 
and  do  not  act,  and  the  threats  offered  to  the  Sultan, 
followed  b}'  absolute  inaction,  have  enormously  damaged 
our  prestige  in  the  Near  East.  "  You  English,"  said  a 
Turkish  minister  to  a  friend  of  mine  a  few  months  ago, 
"  are  more  cJicfoot  (cowardly)  than  the  Jews,"  and  no  one 
at  Constantinople  believes  that  we  are  anything  but  a 
nation  of  talkers.  It  must  be  remembered  that  British 
victories  in  Egypt  and  elsewhere,  which  would  tend  to 
make  up  for  the  blunders  of  our  politicians,  are  kept  as 
far  as  possible  from  the  Turkish  reader,  while  Great 
Britain  is  misrepresented  in  every  way.  Small  slights 
are  put  upon  our  Ambassador  at  Constantinople  ;  at  the 
Diamond  Jubilee  service  at  Therapia,  which  I  attended, 
the  Sultan  sent  a  second-rate  set  of  functionaries,  who 
were  thought  quite  good  enough  to  pay  honour  to  the 
Queen,  while  at  Sir  Philip  Currie's  departure  from  Con- 
stantinople this  year  a  similar  lack  of  courtesy  was  shown. 
These  small  affronts  are  noticed  by  Orientals,  all  of  them 
great  sticklers  for  the  mint  and  cummin  of  etiquette,  and 
they  draw  their  conclusions  accordingly.  Imagine  such 
a  thing  being  possible  in  the  time  of  the  "  Great  Eltchi," 
when  the  Sultan  and  his  ministers  trembled  at  the  com- 
mands of  the  British  Ambassador  ! 

490 


in   the   Near   East 

But  we  must  admit  that  the  times  have  changed  since 
the  days  of  Lord  Stratford  de  RedcHffe,  and  perhaps  the 
directors  of  our  foreign  policy  have  changed  witli  them. 
In  that  golden  age  of  British  diplomacy  there  was  no 
Germany  to  thwart  our  every  action,  and  Russia  alone 
counted  besides  Great  Britain  at  Constantinople.  As  the 
Tsar  Nicholas  I.  contemptuously  said  to  Sir  Hamilton 
Seymour,  "  If  England  and  I  arrive  at  an  understanding 
in  this  matter,  as  regards  the  rest  it  matters  little  to  me." 
Imagine  Nicholas  II.  thus  ignoring  Berlin,  which  in  those 
days  was  only  the  capital  of  a  second-rate  Power,  which, 
as  Bismarck  said,  ''had  to  wait  in  the  ante-chamber"  of 
an  European  Congress  !  But,  while  we  can  no  longer 
expect  to  hold  the  exclusive  position  at  Constantinople 
which  belonged  to  us  before  Germany  became  a  Great 
Power,  we  might  at  least  maintain  the  same  reputation 
for  promptitude  and  vigour  which  belongs  to  other 
nations.  When  the  French  mail-bag  was  opened  in 
the  streets  of  Constantinople,  the  French  Ambassador  at 
once  demanded  compensation  from  the  Turkish  Govern- 
ment, which  was  speedily  paid.  But  when  the  clerk  in 
charge  of  the  then  existing  British  branch  post-oftice  at 
Stambul  and  the  Stambul  letter-carrier — one  of  whom 
was  a  naturalised  British  subject,  and  both  British  em- 
ployes— were  murdered  in  the  massacre  of  the  26th  of 
August,  1896,  no  vigorous  steps  were  taken  to  secure 
compensation  for  their  widows  and  children,  and  up  to 
the  date  of  writing,  two  years  after  the  event,  nothing  has 
been  paid  by  the  Turkish  Government.  We  may  contrast 
with  this,  too,  the  prompt  action  of  the  Austrian  Govern- 
ment in  demanding  reparation  for  the  insult  to  AI. 
Brazzafoli,  the  Austrian-Lloyd  agent  at  Alersina  and 
the  vigour  with  which  the  American  Minister  presses 
his  claims  upon  the  Turkish  Government.  The  con- 
duct   of    British    policy    has    indeed    altered    since    the 

491 


Travels  and   Politics 


days  when  Lord  Palnierston  made  his  memorable 
speech  comparing  the  position  of  a  British  subject 
abroad  with  that  of  a  Roman  citizen.  That  the  British 
fieet  could  have  forced  the  Dardanelles  at  the  time 
of  the  massacre  was  admitted,  I  am  told,  by  the  British 
Ambassador  himself,  who  said  that  at  that  moment  Great 
Britain  had  missed  a  great  opportunity.     And  when   he 


JOSEPH    HAXEMIAX,   THE    MURDERED   CLERK 
OF   THE    BRITISH    POST   OFFICE. 

left  Constantinople  Sir  Philip  Currie  confessed  that  his 
five  years  there  had  been  years  of  disappointment,  and 
that  he  quitted  the  post  a  sadder,  and  he  hoped,  a  wiser 
man.  But  the  fault  does  not  wholly,  or  chiefly,  lie  with 
our  representatives  abroad.  We  have  in  the  Balkan 
Peninsula — and  I  can  speak  from  personal  experience 
of    many    of    them — excellent    diplomatic   and    consular 

492 


in   the   Near   East 

representatives  who  thoroughly  know  their  business  and 
dishke  the  dechne  of  British  influence,  which  is  not  due 
to  them.  For  it  must  be  remembered  that  in  these  days 
of  the  telegraph  almost  everything  is  referred  home,  and 
one  too  often  hears  complaints  that  the  Foreign  Office 
neglects  the  advice  sent  to  it  by  those  on  the  spot,  and 
either  does  nothing,  or  frames  a  policy  of  its  own.  When 
Lord  E.  Fitzmaurice  and  Mr.  Bryce  were  Under  Secre- 
taries for  Foreign  Affairs  they  took  the  deepest  interest  in 
South-Eastern  Europe,  and  during  the  Bulgarian  crisis  of 
ten  or  twelve  years  ago  Lord  Salisbury,  probably  inspired 
by  the  Queen,  displayed  a  judicious  support  of  Stambuloff 
which  reminded  one  of  his  early  efforts  on  behalf  of 
Koumania.  But  nowadays  the  British  Government,  in 
the  words  of  a  resident  in  the  Near  East,  "  doesn't  care 
a  damn  about  the  Balkan  countries."  Considering  the 
specimens  of  Foreign  Office  geography  with  which  we 
are  occasionally  favoured,  it  would  seem  that  department 
knows  very  little  about  them.  As  a  man,  who  had  spent 
his  whole  life  in  diplomatic  business,  lately  said  to  me, 
"  it  is  in  a  state  of  ignorance  and  apathy,  which  is 
almost  disastrous."  Nothing  could  better  prove  the 
advantage  of  having  as  Foreign  Secretary  a  man  who 
has  studied  the  Eastern  Question  on  the  spot  than  the 
more  intelligent  handling  of  Cretan  affairs  which  has 
followed  the  transference  of  Admiral  Canevaro  from  his 
flagship  in  Cretan  waters  to  the  head  of  the  Italian 
Foreign  Office.  But  too  often,  in  the  phrase  of  an 
Austrian  officer,  "  diplomatists  traverse  the  Balkan 
Peninsula  in  a  train  de  luxe,  and  then  think  that  they 
have  mastered  the  Eastern  Question." 

But  it  is  not  in  politics  alone  that  British  influence 
in  the  Near  East  is  on  the  wane.  It  is  galling  enough  to 
find,  as  I  have  done,  that  to  speak  German  is  an  open 
sesame  in  Stambul,  while  one's  native  tongue  causes  one 

493 


Travels   and   Politics 

to  be  regarded  with  contempt.  It  is  humiliating,  too, 
to  have  to  obtain  admission  to  the  Imperial  Treasury 
through  the  German  Embassy  or  the  American  Legation 
because  the  British  Ambassador  does  not  consider  it 
as  part  of  his  duties  to  procure  such  facilities  for 
his  countrymen.  But  these  are  small  things  compared 
with  the  profound  indifference  which  most  British 
Ambassadors  at  Constantinople  have  displayed  towards 
the  trade  of  their  country.  On  one  occasion  a  deputation 
of  British  merchants  waited  on  their  diplomatic  repre- 
sentative and  requested  his  good  offices  on  behalf  of 
their  trade.  The  Ambassador  bluntly  told  the  deputation 
that  British  trade  was  no  business  of  his,  and  wlien  they 
murmured  at  his  reply,  added,  with  a  sublime  ignorance 
of  the  conditions  of  commerce,  "  Gentlemen,  if  you  are 
discontented,  why  don't  you  leave  the  country  ' "  It  is 
perhaps  natural  that  Ambassadors  of  the  old  school, 
recruited  from  the  aristocracy  in  the  days  before  its 
members  were  delighted  to  earn  guineas  as  company 
directors,  should  take  this  view,  but  it  may  be  observed 
that  German  Ambassadors,  who  are  usually  men  of  the 
same  social  standing  as  their  British  colleagues,  are  not 
permitted  by  the  Emperor  to  take  this  attitude  of  sublime 
indifference  towards  what,  after  all,  is  of  more  importance 
to  their  countrymen  than  tittle-tattle  about  courts,  or 
pedantic  deliberations  on  moot  points  of  etiquette.  In 
these  days,  when  the  foreign  policy  of  England  ought, 
and  is  supposed  to  be,  directed  to  the  furtherance  of 
British  trade,  an  Ambassador  should  surely  do  all  in 
his  power  to  advance  the  commercial  interests  of  his 
countrymen.  This  should  especially  be  the  case  in 
Turkey,  where  private  enterprise,  in  order  to  be  success- 
ful, needs  constant  backing  from  the  Embassies.  Sir 
J.  W.  Whittall,  the  President  of  the  British  Chamber 
of   Commerce  of  Turkey,  has  pointed   out  that  the  un- 

494 


in  the  Near  East 

doubted  decline  of  British  trade  in  that  country  is 
chiefly  due  to  "  the  past  obstinacy  shown  by  Her 
Majesty's  Government  in  refusing  to  promote  and 
protect  the  interests  of  its  men  of  enterprise  in  the 
same  way  as  other  Governments,  and  notably  the  French 
and  German."  As  an  instance  of  British  weakness  maybe 
quoted  the  Anatolian  railway,  originally  a  British  enter- 
prise in  British  hands,  of  which  the  staff  is  now  German. 
The  result  is  that  the  articles  required  by  the  railway 
company  are  now  ordered  from  Germany  instead  of  from 
Great  Britain,  and  thus  British  capital  is  being  utilised  for 
the  promotion  of  Germany's  political  and  commercial 
interests.  Two  years  ago,  when  the  question  of  the 
lighthouse  dues  at  Constantinople  was  under  discussion, 
a  Foreign  Office  official  decided  the  matter  without 
previous  consultation  with  our  merchants  and  concluded 
an  arrangement  which  has  resulted  in  a  loss  of  many 
thousands  to  British  shipping.  "  It  would  be  foolish  to 
conceal  the  fact,"  says  Sir  J.  \V.  Whittall,  "that  of  late 
years  it  has  been  a  disadvantage,  rather  than  otherwise, 
to  be  a  British  subject."  No  doubt  the  absolute  indif- 
ference of  many  merchants  at  home  to  the  excellent 
"  Diplomatic  and  Consular  Reports  on  Trade  and 
Finance  "  which  have  been  issued  by  the  Foreign  Office 
during  the  last  twelve  years  is  partly  responsible  for  the 
fact  that  our  rivals  have  cut  us  out  in  the  Near  East. 
The  wretched  education  in  modern  languages  with  which 
most  Englishmen  are  afflicted  is  another  disadvan- 
tage from  which  German  and  Austrian  commercial 
travellers  are  exempt,  while  our  strange  medley  of 
weights  and  measures  still  further  handicaps  us  in 
countries  where  the  metric  system  prevails.  1  once  met 
an  English  commercial  traveller  in  Bulgaria  who  spoke 
German  and  did  an  excellent  business  in  agricultural 
implements  both  there  and  in  Roumania.  But  such  men 
are    not    often    lound    in    the    Balkans,   so    the  trade   of 

495 


Travels  and   Politics 

the  Peninsula  goes  to  other  countries  rather  than  to 
Great  Britain.  Sir  PhiHp  Currie,  it  is  true,  secured  the 
appointment  of  a  British  commercial  attache  at  Con- 
stantinople, and  his  fellow-countrymen  are  duly  grateful 
for  this  tardy  fulfilment  of  a  long-expressed  wish,  as  also 
for  the  nomination  of  a  British  Consular  Agency  at 
the  important  shipping  port  of  Ismid.  But  the  old  idea 
that  the  British  trader  would  prosper  without  the  aid  of 
his  Government  no  longer  applies  to  Turkey.  There,  if 
anywhere,  trade  follows  the  flag,  and  the  flag  which 
it  now  follows  is  that  of  Germany. 

The  policy  of  Germany  in  the  Near  East  has,  indeed, 
undergone  a  marked  change  during  the  present  century. 
At  all  the  three  great  crises  prior  to  the  Berlin  Congress, 
during  the  Greek  War  of  Independence,  and  the  Russo- 
Turkish  War  of  1828-9,  ^^  the  time  of  the  Crimean 
War,  and  in  the  struggle  of  1877-8,  Prussia,  and  in  the 
last  instance  Germany,  played  a  subordinate  part,  and 
Great  Britain,  Russia,  and  in  the  two  former  cases  France, 
were  the  leading  performers.  Count  von  Bernstorff,  the 
Prussian  Minister  for  Foreign  Affairs  in  the  twenties,  was, 
like  his  sovereign,  vaguely  sympathetic  with  the  Hellenic 
cause,  to  which  the  Prussian  people — it  was  before  the 
era  of  the  investment  of  German  savings  in  Greek  securi- 
ties— was  distinctly  favourable.  But  the  Prussian  Govern- 
ment showed,  when  it  declined  to  accept  the  French  and 
Russian  invitations  for  joint  action  in  1827,  that  neither 
its  material  interests  in  the  East  were  sufficient  to  neces- 
•sitate,  nor  its  material  resources  sufficient  to  render  effec- 
tive, any  armed  intervention.  At  one  moment  alone— the 
eve  of  the  Peace  of  Adrianople — did  Prussia,  at  that  time 
the  least  biassed  of  advisers,  contribute  to  the  settlement 
of  the  dispute.^     Frederick  William  IV.  took  an  academic 

'  See  Ringhoffer  :  Ein  Dezeniiium  preussischer  Orieiit-politik  ziir 
Zeit  des  Zaren  X ikolaus  {1S21-1S20),  and  my  notice  of  it  in  The  English 
Historical  Review,  xiii.  387. 

496 


in   the   Near   East 

interest  in  the  Eastern  Question,  on  which  the  historian, 
Von  Ranke,  wrote  him  a  memorandum ;  but  in  the  Crimean 
War  he  took  no  part,  and  in  1878  the  German  Chancellor 
described  himself  as  an  "honest  broker,"  and  in  that  spirit 
conducted  the  Berlin  Congress.  Later  on  Prince  Bis- 
marck followed  the  same  neutral  policy  in  Eastern  affairs. 
He  told  the  world  that  "  the  Eastern  Question  "  was  "  not 
worth  the  bones  of  a  single  Pomeranian  grenadier,"  and 
that  "  Bulgaria  was  as  Hecuba  "  to  him  ;  he  threatened  to 
resign  rather  than  involve  Germany  in  Balkan  politics  by 
the  marriage  of  a  daughter  of  the  Emperor  Frederick  with 
Prince  Alexander  of  Bulgaria  ;  and  he  disapproved  of  the 
sensational  telegrams  which  the  present  Kaiser  despatched 
during  his  first  visit  to  Constantinople.  But  with  the  Iron 
Chancellor's  fall  there  followed  a  complete  change  in 
Germany's  Eastern  policy,  which  culminated  in  the 
"  moral  "  support  tendered  by  the  Emperor  to  the  Sultan 
during  the  war  of  last  year.  There  was  nothing  particu- 
larly new  about  the  service  of  German  military  men  in 
Turkey,  either  as  students  or  instructors,  for  Moltke  had 
gained  his  first  practical  experience  of  war  there  60  years 
earlier.  But  what  was  novel  was  the  deliberate  attempt 
to  exploit  Turkey  in  the  interest  of  Germany.  The  Kaiser 
unhesitatingly  "made  unto  himself  friends  of  the  mammon 
of  unrighteousness,"  and  at  the  same  moment  satisfied  his 
own  dislike  of  Greece  and  his  subjects'  desire  to  sell  their 
wares  in  Turkey.  No  mawkish  considerations  of  humanity 
were  allowed  to  stand  in  the  way  of  this  purely  selfish 
policy.  When  a  certain  German  Countess  approached 
the  late  German  Ambassador  at  Constantinople,  and  asked 
him  to  assist  her  in  distributing  relief  to  the  Armenians, 
he  bluiitly  replied,  "  I  will  do  nothing  for  you  ;  I  do  not 
intend  to  let  philanthropy  interfere  with  our  trade." 
Those  Germans  who  managed  to  get  into  the  interior 
of  Asia  Minor  and  to  find  out  the  truth  for  themselves, 

497  2K 


Travels   and   Politics 

went  without  the  consent  of  their  own  authorities, 
anxious  not  to  embarrass  the  Emperor's  protege  at  Yildiz. 
But  the  Turks  soon  learned  that  if  Germany  helped 
thein  it  was  not  out  of  pure  love  of  Turkey.  True  to  the 
Bismarckian  maxim  of  do  iif  dc5i,  the  Germans  havT  had 
their  reward,  not  always,  it  is  said,  to  the  delii^ht  of  the 
Turkish  authorities.  While  I  was  in  Constantinople  just 
after  the  war,  German  concession-hunters  arrived  by 
every  train  ;  a  German  steamboat  service,  now  bank- 
rupt, was  started  in  competition  with  the  Turkish  steamers 
to  Mudania,  and  every  day  brought  fresh  rumours  of 
German  enterprise,  especially  in  Asia  Minor  and  Syria, 
which  the  Kaiser  seems  to  have  marked  out  as  the  special 
preserve  of  his  own  subjects,  and  which  the  "  Panger- 
manic  League  "  claims  as  Germany's  share  of  the  "  sick 
man's"  inheritance.  Well  acquainted  with  those  argu- 
ments which  prevail  in  most  Oriental  lands,  the  Germans, 
who  in  these  days  have  plenty  of  cash,  bribe  the  Turkish 
officials  heavily,  and  then,  having  thus  prepared  the  way, 
invoke  the  powerful  aid  of  their  Government — and  not  in 
vain.  Russia  having,  like  the  King  of  Cappadocia  in 
Horace,  many  servants  but  little  ready  money,  does  not 
oppose  this  action  of  Germany,  which  injures  us  far  more 
than  any  other  nation.  German  beer  has  now  supplanted 
British  ale,  and  the  "  tunnel"  railway,  which  connects  Pera 
with  Galata,  is  about  to  pass  out  of  British  hands.  One 
Turkish  line  alone  now  remains  under  our  control.  On  at 
least  two  others  the  guards  cry  out  in  German,  /<?r//;tf,  when 
the  train  is  ready  to  start.  The  transference  of  Baron  von 
Marschall,  the  late  Foreign  IVIinister  of  Germany,  to  the 
Constantinople  Embassy  shows  what  importance  the 
Emperor  attaches  to  this  post.  Besides,  in  his  zeal  to 
assist  his  commercial  friends  at  home,  he  insists  that  his 
diplomatic  representative  on  the  Bosporus  should  keep 
a  vigilant  watch  on  trade  matters.     A  prominent  British 

498 


ill   the   Near   East 

merchant  in  Stambul  told  me  that  one  morning  an  attache 
from  the  German  Embassy  walked  into  his  counting-house 
and  asked  him  in  the  name  of  the  Ambassador  for  infor- 
mation as  to  the  solvency  of  a  certain  firm.  Oui-  country- 
man gave  him  the  desired  information,  expressing  at  the 
same  time  his  surprise  that  so  great  a  personage  as  tin 
German  Ambassador  should  occupy  himself  about  such 
matters,  which  in  his  long  experience  had  never  troubled 
an  Ambassador  of  Great  Britain.  The  German  attache 
replied  that  the  Emperor  personally  took  the  greatest 
interest  in  all  that  could  benefit  German  trade,  and  that 
the  Berlin  Foreign  Office  had  specially  ordered  this  par- 
ticular investigation.  Another  German  connected  with 
the  Berlin  Government  told  me  that,  if  complaints  are 
made  against  German  consuls  abroad,  the  Kaiser  himself 
writes  to  reprimand  them.  So  numerous  has  the  German 
colony  in  Constantinople  become  that  it  supports  a  club 
of  its  own  and  has  taught  the  most  illiterate  Turks  that 
there  is  another  European  nationality  besides  the  English 
and  the  Russians.  The  visit  of  William  II.  this  year  will 
doubtless  increase  German  commercial  influence  in 
Turkey.  For  if  Bismarck  was  only  an  *'  honest  broker  " 
who  charged  no  commission,  the  Kaiser  is  a  commercial 
traveller  whose  journeys  are  utilised  for  the  propagation 
of  German  trade.  It  has  been  rumoured  that  he  intends  to 
ask  the  Sultan  to  give  him  the  port  of  Haifa,  where  a  good 
many  Germans  are  already  settled.  The  anxiety  of  the 
Turkish  Government  to  keep  its  patron  in  good  humour 
has  been  shown  by  the  enormous  expenditure  of  money 
made  by  the  Sultan  for  the  reception  of  his  guest  and 
the  huge  retinue  provided  for  the  Imperial  traveller.  In 
this  case  the  Ottoman  officials  have  literally  thrown  sand 
in  the  eyes  of  their  too  inquisitive  visitor,  for  the  vawning 
chasms  in  the  Stambul  streets  have  been  filled  with  that 
useful  material  so  that  the  Emperor  might  not  see  the 

499 


Travels   and   Politics 

defects  of  Turkish  road-making.  In  Palestine  new 
carriage-roads  have  actually  been  made  for  his  con- 
venience, and  the  boatmen  of  Jaffa  are  represented  as 
joyfully  paying  the  extra  tax  for  their  construction. 

France,  who  in  former  days  held  a  very  prominent 
place  in  Eastern  affairs,  has  latterly  sunk  into  the  posi- 
tion of  playing  second  fiddle  to  Kussia.  The  French 
always  used  to  regard  Syria  as  their  special  portion  of  the 
Turkish  heritage,  and  no  man  was  more  sympathetic  to 
oppressed  nationalities  than  Napoleon  III.  who  warmly 
supported  the  Roumanian  agitation  of  1848.  Earlier  in 
the  century  the  French  had  joined  with  Russia  and 
England  in  crediting  the  kingdom  of  Greece,  and  the 
part  which  they  played  in  the  Crimean  War  showed  that 
they  were  deeply  interested  in  the  Eastern  Question.  The 
Alliance  frangnise  has  done  much  to  spread  the  French 
language  in  the  Levant,  and  most  Orientals  who  desire 
a  Western  education  seek  it  in  France  rather  than  else- 
where. That  country,  too,  has  always  considered  herself 
as  the  special  protectress  of  the  Latin  Christians,  and  a 
French  Bishop,  alarmed  at  the  encroachments  of  the 
German  Emperor  upon  this  ecclesiastical  preserve  has 
lately  obtained  from  the  Pope  an  explicit  statement  of 
the  traditional  claims  of  France.  But  during  the 
Armenian  troubles  M.  Hanotaux,  who  won  his  first 
diplomatic  laurels  at  Constantinople,  was  always  indis- 
posed to  coerce  the  Turkish  Government  and  contented 
himself  with  saying  ditto  to  everything  that  Prince 
Lobanoff  proposed  ;  accordingly  French  public  opinion 
was  kept  quiet  by  withholding  Yellow  Books  which  would 
haV'e  enlightened  it  on  the  situation.  In  M.  Cambon, 
the  then  French  Ambassador  at  Constantinople,  France 
had  a  man  of  great  vigour  who  always  meant  what  he 
said,  and  usually  got  what  he  asked,  but  of  course  he 
could   not   override  the  policy  of  his  chief.     Since  the 

^00 


in   the   Near   East 

change  of  Russian  policy  after  Prince  Lobanoff's  death 
France  has  become  less  Turkophil,  and  the  French  press 
has  changed  its  tone.  Commercially,  the  facilities 
accorded  to  French  steamers  to  unknid  before  reaching 
Constantinople  have  enabled  them  to  cut  out  British  lines, 
which  have  no  such  facilities  for  sending  their  goods 
rapidly  and  cheaply  into  the  interior.  But  compared 
with  the  Germans,  the  French  are  not  very  serious 
rivals  to  ourselves  in  the  Levant. 

Italy,  like  France,  has  traditions  which  connect  her 
with  the  Near  East.  The  Levantine  possessions  of 
Venice  are,  of  course,  gone  for  ever,  but  as  we  have 
seen,  the  Italians  have  some  aspirations  in  Albania, 
which  is  visible  on  a  clear  day  from  the  ramparts  of 
Otranto.  Italian  culture  and  the  Italian  language  have 
also  left  their  marks  on  the  Dalmatian  coast  towns  and 
on  the  Ionian  Islands,  while  there  are  considerable  Italian 
colonies  at  Constantinople  and  Smyrna.  The  steamers 
of  the  Florio-Rubattino  Company  naturally  propagate 
Italian  commerce  in  the  Levant,  and  during  the  late  war 
public  sympathy  in  Italy  was  strongly  on  the  side  of  the 
Greeks.  One  Italian  deputy  fell  on  the  Greek  side,  just 
as  Santarosa  had  fallen  in  the  Greek  war  of  Independence. 
Latterly,  too,  since  Admiral  Canevaro  became  her  Foreign 
Minister,  Italy  has  taken  the  initiative  in  the  Cretan 
question,  but  her  misfortunes  in  Africa,  her  domestic 
troubles,  and  her  poverty  make  it  unlikely  that  she  will 
be  of  great  account  in  the  Near  East  for,  at  any  rate, 
many  years  to  come. 

There  remain  the  two  most  important  factors  in  the 
situation,  Austria-Hungary  and  Russia,  between  whom, 
in  all  probability  the  ultimate  solution  of  the  Eastern 
question  will  lie.  Long  before  her  exclusion  from  Ger- 
many and  Italy  in  1866,  Austria  had  turned  her  eyes 
towards    the    East.       During    the    first    half    of    the    last 

501 


Travels  and   Politics 

century  a  large  portion  of  Servia  was  for  twenty-one 
years  in  her  possession,  and  the  Turks  themselves  were 
amazed  at  the  progress  which  their  rayahs  had  made 
during  that  brief  period.  On  two  occasions  the  perse- 
cuted Serbs  followed  their  ecclesiastical  head  and  found 
a  refuge  from  the  Turks  in  the  neighbouring  empire. 
In  the  eighteenth  century,  too,  a  portion  of  what  is  now 
Roumania  was  temporarily,  and  the  Bukovina  perma- 
nently, annexed  to  the  Austrian  dominions,  and  in  1797 
the  acquisition  of  Dalmatia  placed  Austria  in  close  con- 
nection with  the  provinces  of  Bosnia  and  the  Herce- 
govina,  which  it  was  the  aim  of  Joseph  II.  to  incorporate 
with  his  empire,  and  the  occupation  of  which  in  our 
own  time,  together  with  the  military  colonisation  of  the 
three  points  in  the  Sandzak  of  Novi-Bazar,  has  driven  a 
strong  Austrian  wedge  into  the  Balkan  Peninsula.  It 
will  thus  be  seen  that  the  progress  of  Austria  eastward  is 
no  new  affair  but  an  historical  process  which  has  been 
gradually  going  on  and  is  in  all  probability  likely  to  con- 
tinue. One  need  not,  however,  assume  that  a  farther 
Austrian  advance  into  the  Peninsula  is  imminent  at 
present.  The  policy  of  the  Dual  Monarchy  is  now,  and 
has  been  for  some  years  past,  to  prevent  disturbances  of 
any  kind  in  the  Balkans,  which  would  be  likely  to  em- 
barrass Austro-Hungarian  interests  and  prospects.  For 
that  reason  the  Austro-Hungarian  Ambassador  at 
Constantinople,  who  knows  Turkey  better  than  an}'  of 
his  colleagues,  has  adopted  a  strictly  conservative  attitude 
for  the  last  twelve  years.  This,  too,  was  the  cause  of 
the  admonitions,  addressed  by  Count  Goluchowski  in 
common  with  Russia,  to  the  other  four  Balkan  states  at 
the  time  of  the  war  between  Greece  and  Turkey  ;  while, 
in  the  Cretan  question,  the  chief  motive  of  Austro- 
Hungarian  policy  seems  to  have  been  the  localisation 
of   the  disturbance,  so  that  it  should  not  spread   to  the 


in   the   Near   East 

mainland.  The  Austro-Russian  agreement,  respecting 
the  spheres  of  influence  of  the  two  Powers  in  the 
Balkan  Peninsula,  has  not,  indeed,  worked  as  well  as 
it  might  have  done,  because  Russia  has  not  ceased  to 
encourage  Montenegrin  aspirations  by  depicting  in  the 
blackest  colours  the  state  of  Bosnia  and  the  Hercegovina, 
to  visit  Servia,  although  that  kingdom  was  supposed  to 
be  in  the  Austrian  sphere  of  influence,  with  her  heavy 
displeasure,  and  even  through  the  mouth  of  one  of  her 
generals  to  stir  up  discord  at  Prague.  But  the  great 
political  and  commercial  interests  of  the  Dual  Monarchy 
in  the  Near  East  will  doubtless,  when  the  psychological 
moment  arrives,  force  her  to  fulfil  her  mission  of  civili- 
sation. Large  sums  of  Austrian  money  are  invested  in 
Turkish  railways,  and  the  Embassy  looks  well  after  the 
interests  of  the  investors.  The  Austrian-Lloyd  steamers 
touch  at  nearly  every  port  in  the  Levant,  and  the  agents 
of  that  line  are  naturally  centres  of  local  influence  and 
information.  Moreover,  as  we  have  shown  in  the 
chapters  on  Bosnia  and  the  Hercegovina,  Austro- 
Hungarian  administration  has  been  singularly  success- 
ful. There  seems  to  be  no  reason  why  those  inde- 
pendent Balkan  states,  whose  subjects  are  mainly  of 
one  race  and  religion,  should  not  continue  to  preserve 
their  independence.  But  it  is  obvious  that  a  Great 
Power,  which  is  impartial  in  its  treatment  of  conflicting 
races  and  creeds,  is  alone  eiualified  to  govern  those 
debateable  lands,  like  Macedonia,  where  national  unity 
is  impossible.  Mr.  Gladstone,  to  whom  Bulgaria,  Monte- 
negro, and  Greece  owe  a  debt  of  gratitude,  was,  I 
venture  to  think,  in  error,  when  he  declared  that  "you 
cannot  put  your  finger  on  the  map  of  Europe,  and  find 
a  place  where  Austria  has  done  good."  This  idea  of 
the  old  school  of  English  Liberals,  derived  from  the 
days    of    Metternich's    regime,    is    quite    obsolete    now. 

503 


Travels  and   Politics 

But  it  may  be  argued  that  the  internal  difhculties  of  the 
Austro-Hungarian  Monarchy  will  be  aggravated  on  the 
death  of  the  Emperor  Francis  Joseph  to  such  an  extent 
tiiat,  instead  of  receiving  a  further  share  of  the  Turk's 
patrimony,  the  Monarchy  will  be  divided  up  herself. 
Prophecies  of  this  kind  have  frequently  been  made 
before,  without  being  accomplished.  Metternich  expected 
the  deluge  in  1848,  others  anticipated  it  in  1866  ;  on 
neither  occasion  did  it  arrive.  It  must  also  be  remem- 
bered, that  the  army  is  solidly  devoted  to  the  interests  of 
the  dynasty,  and  that  the  heir-apparent,  the  Archduke 
Francis  Ferdinand,  whose  health  has  greatly  improved,  is 
popular,  and  no  longer  a  young  man  without  experience. 
No  greater  catastrophe  could  befall  Europe  than  the 
dismemberment  of  a  Great  Power,  which  is  a  geographical 
necessity,  placed,  as  it  is,  between  the  West  and  the  East, 
and  serving  as  interpreter  between  the  one  and  the  other. 
Diplomacy,  like  nature,  abhors  a  vacuum,  and  were 
Austria-Hungary  to  disappear  the  vacuum  thus  created 
would  be  most  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  to  supply.  The 
mind  is  staggered  at  the  combinations  which  might  be 
devised  to  supply  the  vacant  place,  and  at  the  endless 
struggles  which  it  would  cost  to  realise  any  of  them. 

Russia,  like  Austria,  has  been  slowly  but  surely 
advancing  into  the  Turkish  Empire.  The  first  great  step 
on  her  course  was  the  Treaty  of  Kutchuk-Kainardzi  in 
1774,  which  conceded  to  the  Tsars  the  fatal  privilege  of 
"  speaking  on  behalf  of "  the  Danubian  Principalities 
and  of  intervening  as  protectors  of  the  Christian  subjects 
of  Turkey.  "  From  that  moment,"  says  Von  Hammer, 
"  Russia  has  been  the  oracle  of  Turkish  diplomacy,  the 
arbiter  of  peace  or  war,  the  soul  of  the  most  important 
alTairs  of  the  Turkish  Empire."  There  followed  the 
annexation  of  the  Crimea,  the  extension  of  the  Russian 
frontier  in  Europe  to  the  Pruth,  and  tiie  first  dash  of  the 

504 


in   the   Near   East 

Russians  across  the  Balkans  in  1829.  The  Crimean  War 
was  only  a  temporaiy  check,  and  the  march  of  the 
Russian  troops  to  San  Stefano  twenty  years  ago  marked 
a  further  advance  on  the  path  marked  out  by  Catherine 
II.  It  has  yet  to  be  seen  whether  the  Berlin  Treaty  has 
permanently  frustrated  Russian  designs.  Since  the  death 
of  M.  Stambuloff  she  has  regained  her  influence  over  the 
Prince,  but  not  over  the  people,  of  Bulgaria  ;  the  King 
of  Roumania  has  this  year,  for  the  first  time  since 
his  betrayal  by  Russia  in  respect  of  Bessarabia,  visited 
St.  Petersburg  ;  and  Montenegro  is,  as  ever,  a  loyal 
supporter  of  the  Tsar.  Servia,  too,  has  shown  signs  of 
throwing  herself  into  the  arms  of  the  Bear.  But  these 
diplomatic  successes  in  the  Balkans  are  perhaps  of  less 
real  importance  than  they  might  have  been  formerly. 
The  Roumanians  and  the  Bulgarians  have  had  bitter 
experiences  of  a  Russian  occupation,  and  have  no  wish 
to  be  "treated  like  children,"  as  we  saw  in  the  last  chap- 
ter ;  and,  in  spite  of  King  Carol's  late  visit  to  the  Tsar  and 
the  claims  of  the  Roumanian  Irredentists  to  the  Rouma- 
nian-speaking districts  of  Hungary,  his  country  seems 
hkely  to  adhere  to  the  Triple  Alliance.  The  Roumanian 
army,  whose  valour  was  displayed  at  Plevna,  might  thus  be  a 
formidable  obstacle  to  a  Russian  advance  to  Constanti- 
nople by  way  of  the  Balkan  Peninsula,  and  for  that  and  other 
reasons  it  is  thought  by  some  people  at  Constantinople, 
who  know  the  ground  well,  that  the  next  Russian  attack 
will  be  by  way  of  Asia,  backed  by  a  fleet  at  Riva,  a  place 
on  the  Black  Sea  near  the  mouth  of  the  Bosporus.  Even 
under  Abdul  Mejid,  Abram  Pasha,  the  Khedive  Ismail's 
agent,  constructed  a  pier  at  this  spot,  and  made  a  road 
from  Riva  to  Beikos  on  the  Bosporus,  to  facilitate  a 
Russian  attack.  Moreover,  in  Asia  the  invaders  would 
be  able  to  march  from  one  plain  into  another — a  great 
advantage  over  the  European  route.     It  is  also  a  rcmai-k- 

505 


Travels  and   Politics 

able  fact  that  Russians  have  bought  up  several  of  the 
most  commanding  sites  along  the  Bosporus,  and  there  is 
no  doubt  of  the  fear  with  which  this  hereditary  foe 
inspires  the  Sultan. 

Of  the  success  of  Russian  diplomacy  no  one  can  have 
any  doubt.  As  a  British  official,  who  had  had  ample 
opportunities  of  observing  it,  said  to  me  :  "  I  admire  the 
results,  just  as  much  as  I  despise  the  methods,  of  Muscovite 
diplomacy;  one  day  Russia  will  outwit  us  in  the  Near,  as 
she  has  already  outwitted  us  in  the  Far,  East,  for  we 
neglect  our  chances,  political  as  well  as  commercial." 
Tortuous  as  the  foreign  policy  of  Russia  appears  to  be  to 
superficial  observers,  the  Russian  attitude  towards  Turkey 
has  always  had  the  same  end  in  view.  Sometimes  the 
policy  of  the  Tsars  is  to  threaten  and  oppose  the  Turk 
while  championing  the  cause  of  the  oppressed  Christians 
of  the  Turkish  Empire.  This  is  the  attitude  with  which 
the  frequent  Russo-Turkish  wars  have  familiarised  Europe, 
and  which  in  the  case  of  Crete  is  being  at  present  followed 
by  Count  Muravieff.  But  this  policy  of  more  or  less  open 
hostility  to  Turkey  is  occasionally  varied  by  the  more  in- 
sidious one  of  protecting  the  Sultan  against  his  enemies.  It 
was  thus  in  1833  that  the  Treaty  of  Hunkiar  Iskelessi  practi- 
cally annihilated  the  independence  of  Turkey  by  placing 
her  under  the  august  protection  of  Nicholas  I.  It  was 
thus  too  during  the  Armenian  troubles  that  the  late 
Prince  Lobanoft'  refused  to  move  a  linger  on  behalf  of 
the  persecuted  Christians,  and  frankly  declared  that  he 
did  not  wish  to  create  a  second  Bulgaria  in  Asia  Minor. 
The  object  of  this  latter  attitude  is  of  course  perfectly 
obvious.  There  are  times  when  it  suits  the  convenience 
of  Russia  to  treat  Turkey  as  a  protected  State,  and  to 
allow  her  Ambassador  at  Constantinople  to  play  at  the 
Court  of  the  Sultan  the  part  which  is  assigned  to  a 
British  Resident  at  the  capital   of  a  native  state  in  India. 

506 


in   the   Near   East 

In  some  ways  a  weak  Turkey  who  looks  to  Russia  for 
protection  and  advice  may  suit  the  requirements  of 
Russian  statesmen  even  better  than  a  Turkey  who  is 
actually  dismembered,  for  in  the  latter  case  Russia  must 
go  shares  with  Austria  and  possibly  with  other  Pow-ers  as 
well,  while  in  the  former  she  can  reign  in  fact,  if  not  in 
name,  at  Constantinople,  and  direct  the  Turkish  Empire 
for  her  sole  advantage  through  the  mouth  of  the  puppet 
whom  she  maintains  on  his  throne.  Modern  diplomacy 
has  indeed  largely  substituted  for  the  old  frank  method 
of  conquest  and  direct  annexation  the  politer,  and  in 
some  respects  more  convenient,  arrangements  which  dis- 
member the  Turkish  Empire  by  the  use  of  such  pleasant 
phraseology  as  "autonomy,"  "consolidation,"  or  "mili- 
tary occupation."  Thus  by  means  of  fictions,  similar 
to  those  of  English  law,  the  "  integrity  of  the  Ottoman 
Empire  "  is  maintained,  and  the  Sultan  is  compensated 
for  the  pi-actical  loss  of  his  territories  by  the  vague  and 
undeiinable  title  of  Suzerain.  But  a  day  will  doubtless 
come  when  these  verbal  excuses  will  break  down  and 
Turkey  will  disappear,  in  fact  no  less  than  in  name,  from 
the  map  of  Europe.  That  Russia  will  eventually  reach 
Constantinople  seems  probable,  but  now  that  we  are 
firmly  entrenched  in  Egypt  such  an  event  has  hardly  the 
importance  for  us  that  it  would  have  had  formerly. 
Whether  the  substitution  of  Russian  for  Turkish  rule 
on  the  Bosporus  w^ould  be  an  advantage  to  the  people 
governed,  is  perhaps  more  doubtful.  When  the  Russian 
army  was  at  San  Stefano  there  was  no  less  corruption 
there  than  in  Constantinople  itself,  and  Russia  has  as 
yet  failed  to  deal  with  some  of  the  most  important 
problems  of  administration.  But  that  eventually  Russia 
will  find  her  outlet  at  Constantinople,  and  Austria  hers 
at  Salonica,  seems  to  be  the  most  natural  course  of 
events. 

507 


Travels  and   Politics 

But  of  those  events  no  man  can  lix  the  date.  Again  and 
again  the  "  sick  man  "  has  seemed  to  be  on  his  death- 
bed, and  again  and  again  the  mutual  differences  of  his 
physicians  have  prevented  them  from  giving  him  the 
medicine  which  would  secure  his  happy  dispatch.  The 
condition  of  Turkey  is  no  doubt  rotten  to-day,  but  so  it 
was  in  the  last  century.  A  friend  of  mind  once  asked  the 
late  Sir  William  White  how  long  he  thought  Turkey 
would  continue  to  exist.  The  Ambassador,  who  happened 
to  be  reading  an  old  French  work  on  that  country,  replied 
that  a  hundred  and  forty  years  earlier  the  Ottoman  Empire 
was  described  as  crumbling  to  pieces,  "yet,"  said  he, 
"the  same  state  of  things  still  continues,  so  Turkey 
perhaps  may  go  on  for  a  hundred  and  forty  years  more." 
As  long  ago  as  1769  a  Russian  minister  wrote  that  "it 
would  not  be  difttcult  to  put  an  end  to  the  Turkish 
Empire,  which  has  preserved  itself  for  so  long  solely 
owing  to  the  jealousies  of  the  Christian  Powers."  The 
sentence  might  have  been  taken  from  one  of  this  year's 
Blue  Books.  The  weakness  of  Europe  thus  constituting 
the  strength  of  Turkey,  nothing  but  a  genuine  agreement 
among  the  Powers  chiefly  concerned,  and  at  least  a  strict 
neutrality  on  the  part  of  the  others,  can  solve  the  Eastern 
Question.  But  this  eventuality  seems  still  to  be  very  far 
off,  and  in  these  troublous  times  when  the  Great  Powers 
are  continually  at  variance,  Turkey  seems  likely  to  have 
a  further  lease  of  life.  The  "  discovery "  of  Africa  by 
European  statesmen  has  been  a  perfect  God-send  to 
the  Sultan,  for  not  only  does  it  provide  the  Powers 
with  a  fresh  bone  of  contention,  but  it  also  monopolises 
the  attention  of  the  European  public,  always  unable  to 
think  of  more  than  one  thing  at  a  time.  Such  events  as 
England's  difficulties  in  the  Transvaal,  and  the  Spanish- 
American  War  diverted  men's  eyes  from  what  was  going 
on  in  Turkey,  while  the  Far  East  seems  likely,  for  a  long 

508 


in   the   Near   East 

time  to  come,  to  provide  the  Chancelleries  with  limitless 
occupation.  All  one  can  say  is  that  the  Turkish  Empire 
in  Europe  is  doomed,  but  that  the  death-agony  may  be 
indefinitely  prolonged. 


509 


INDEX 


Abb.izia,  i,  7,  S 
Ahdul   Hamid  II. 


Turkey,  Sultan 


„      Mdjid,  105.  505 
Ada-Kaleh,  Island  of,  360-62 
Agreement,  Austro-Russian,  187 
Akro-Corinlh,  252-53 
Albania,  38,  49,  51,  78-9,  206-14,  482 
Albanian  outrages;  379-80 

,,         Propaganda,  3S6-87 
Almissa,  26 
Andrassy,  Count,  129 
Anglo-Montenegrin   Trading  Co.,  70, 

73 
Antivari,  51,  55,  65,  71-2,  76,  78 
Argos,  253 

Armenian  massacres,  408-10 
Athens,  257  ct  sqq. 

Austria-Hungary.  Advance  of,  in  Xear 
East,  501-4 
,,  ,,  and  Macedonia,  372, 

388-89,503 
„  ,,  and  Servia,  474 

,,  ,,  Civilising  influence 

of,  38,  cli.  iii.  passim 
Austrian-Lloyd  Steamship  Co.,  12,  72, 

491,  503 
Avlona,  sec  Valona 

B 

Balkan    Confederation,   Prospects  of 

479-82 
Banjaluka,  98,  102,  131,  163-67 
Bela  II.,  129 
Belgrade,  476-78 
Berane,  Skirmishes  at,  49,  52 
Berlin,  Treaty  of,  45,  87,  183 
Berovic,  Georgi,  225 

51 


Blagaj,  138,  140 

Bogomiles,  143,  157,  179,  203,  439 

Rova,  The,  i,  8 

Boris,  Prince.  460-61 

Bosnia,  87-182,  197-205 

,,        Administration  of,  114-18 

,,        Agriculture  in,  103 

,,        Austro-Hungarian    forces  in, 

119 
,,       Derivation  of  name  of,  112 
,,       Education  in,  97-103 
,.       Exhibition  of  products  of,  loi 
,,        Franciscans  in,  98,  159.  164 

Health  of,  122-23 
,,        History  of,  34,  87-90 
.,       Hotels  in,  iio-ii 
,,        Justice  in,  106 
,,       Land  question  in,  103-7 
,,       Plums  of,  no 
,,       Press  of,  1 13-14 
,,        Railways  in,  108-10,  133-34 

Religious  sects  in,  90-97 
,,       Taxation  in,  120-22 
,,       Trade  of,  112-13 
Bourgas,  433-36 
Bred,  108,  127,  131 
Brusa,  loi,  418-24 
Bugojno,  131,  157 
Bulgaria,  433-73 

Claims    of,    in    Macedonia, 
372-77,  469,  481 
,,         Inns  of,  450-51 
,,         Prince  Ferdinand  of,  49,  375, 

407-8,  456,  461-64,  481 
,,         Public  life  in,  463-65 
,,         Railways  of,  458-60 
Se^rvants  in,  454-55 
,,         Sobranjd  of,  460 
Buna,  138-40 
I 


Ind 


ex 


Cajnica,  180-2 
Candia,  sec  Crete 
Canea,  sec  Crete 
Castelnuovo,  34,  37,  ioq 
Cattaro,  Bocchedi,  8,  11,  35-40,  51,  76, 
86 
,,       Town  of,  38-40 
Cephalonia,  233-35 
Cetinje,  33,  42-3,  45,  66,  73 
Cieur  de  Lion,  ^^ 
Constantinople,  390-432 

Dogs  in,  425 
„  Fires  in,  427 

„  Taxes  in,  428-29 

Corfu,  214-33 

,,      British  rule  in,  216-19,  220-22 

Homericlegend  in,  214,  216 
,,      in    wartime,     222-23,    225-27, 
229 
Corinth  Canal,  250-52 
Crete,  219,  322-52 

,,      Refugees  from,  264-66 
Crnagora,  see  Montenegro 
Croatia,  129 
Cyrillic  alphabet,  32,  97,  99,  4:;:; 

D 

Dahnatia,  10-40 

,,  Costume  of,  19 

,,  Diet  of,  22,  23 

,,  Neglect  of,  10 

Newspapers  of,  11,  21,  t,2 

,,  Politics  of,  II,  15,  33 

,,  Roads  of,  II 

,,  Scenery  of,  10,  18 

,,  Seamen  of,  ii 

Danilovgrad,  80 
Deligeorgis,  M.,  298,  308 
Delphi,  246-50 

Delyannis,  M.,  287-89,  309,  312 
Dioclea,  79 

Diocletian,  Palace  of,  24 
Doboj,  170-71 
Dolnja  Tuzla,  113,  171 
Drina,  The,  179,  197-201 
Dulcigno,  44,  49,  59,  65,  71 
Durazzo,  211-12 
Dusan,  Tsar,  47,  49,  62,  371,  378,  472 


E 

Emperor,    The   Austrian,  7,  34,    127 
170,  172,  179 
,,  The  German,  7,  8,  426-27, 

497,  499 
Envir  Pasha,  276-77 


Falcons,  173-74. 
Foiba,  The,  4-7 

France  in  the  Near  East,  491,  500- 
501 


Germany  in  the  Near  East,  100,  293, 

319,  494,  496-501 
Gladstone,  Mr.,  and  Austria,  503 
,,  „     and  Macedonia,  388 

,,  ,,     and  Montenegro,  44, 

45.5^ 
Glasinac,  Cemetery  of,  203 
Gorazda,  179,  197-98 
Grahovo,  85 

Great  Britain  in  the  Near  East,  44,  45, 

52,  70,  73,  293, 319,  325,  327-29,  4«9- 

96 

Greco-Turkish  War,  213,  222-23,  225- 

27,  229,  243-44,  261  (■/  sqq.,  363,  481 

Greece,  214-320 

Army  of,  311 
,,        Brigandage  in,  273-74 
,,        Crown    Prince    of,  281,  285, 

309,  3^2 
,,        Dogs  in,  274 
,,        Earthquakes  in,  235-36,  252, 
259-60 
Easter  in,  254-61 
„        Executioner  of,  254 
,,         Inns  of,  228,  237-38 
,,        Justice  in,  310-11,  313 

King  George  of,  127,  220-21, 

241-42,  263-64,  280  et  sqq. 

,,        Macedonian   claims  of,  381- 

S4 
„        Monasteries  of,  228-32,  242- 

46. 
,,        Paper  currency  of,  218 
,,        Parliament  of,  304  ef  sqq. 
,,         Politics  in,  279-320 
„        Press  of,  258,  262,  301,  303, 

318 


512 


Index 


Greece,  Prince  George  of,  284,  309, 
328,  344-47 
„        Queen  Olga  of,  283-84,  316 
,,        Railways  of,  240-41,  243,  271, 

314 

,,        Titles  in,  294 

Grekoft",  M.,  377,  467-68 

H 

Hercegovina,  The,  34,  35,  50-1,  102, 
109,  1 12-14,  119.     See  also  Bosnia 

Hrvoje,  Bosnian  "king-maker,"  34, 
161-62,  164 

Hungarian  claim  on  Bosnia,  129 

I 

Ilidze,  loi,  125,  144,  153-54 
Irby,  Miss,  107 
Irredentists,  Italian,  3-4 

,,  Roumanian,  386,  505 

Istria,  1-9 

Italy  in  the  Near  East,  207,  325,  327- 
30,  501 

J 

Jablanica,  142-43,  157 
Jajce,  88-9,  129,  157-63 
Jews  in  Bosnia,  125,  147 

,,       Salonica,  125 

„       Smyrna,  125 
Jezero,  163 


Kallay,  Baron  von,  24,  50,  90,  no,  11; 

120,  123,  125,  128 
Kallay,  Baroness  von,  125-27,  164 
Kalofer,  443-44 
Karapanos,  M.,  298,  300,  308 
Karst,  The,  2,  10 
Kazanlik,  444-45 
Kerka,  Falls  of  the,  18-19 
Konjica,  144 

Koutzo-Wallachs,  372,  384-86 
Krivosije,  The,  86 


Lacroma,  Island  of,  35 
Livno,  24,  131 
Lussin-piccolo,  13 


1^3 


M 


Macedonian  question.  The,  369-89 
,,  races  (i.)  Albanians,  386- 

87 
„  ,,     (ii.)  Bulgarians,372 

377 
„  „     (iii.)Greeks,  381-84 

,,  ,,     (iv.)     Roumanians, 

384-86 
„  .,     (v.)  Servians,   377- 

81 
,,  railways,  49,  187 

Maglaj,  171-74 
Mahmud  II.,  90,  411,  485 
Marathon,  272-73 
Matanovic,  M.,  54 
Maximilian,  Emperor  of  Mexico,  at 

Lacroma,  35 
Medua,  S.  Giovanni  di,  69,  209-210. 
Megara,  dances  at,  254-57 
Megaspelaion,  Monastery  of,  243-46 
Metalka-Sattel,  182 
Metkovic,  133,  140 
Mirdites,  210 
Mohammed  II.,  160,  423 
Montenegro,  41-86 

,,  Army  of,  65-7 

„  Christmas  in,  64-5 

,,  Costume  of,  56-8 

.,  Crown  Prince  of,  59-62 

,,  Education  in,  75 

„  Journalism  in,  41 

Post  Office  of,  69 
„  Prince  Mirko  of,  63 

,,  Prince  Nicholas  I.  of,  32, 

33  ;  (his  relations  with 
Austria- Hungary)  32, 
38,44,  49-53,68,  119; 
(with  Bulgaria)  49  ; 
(with  Great  Britain) 
42,  44-6,  52,  54  ;  (with 
Servia)  47,  481  ;  (with 
Turkey)  44,  73,  78  ; 
(his  writings)  33,  46-7 
61,  76 
„  Princess  of,  57,  59 

,,  Princess  Anna  of,  42 

,,  Princess  Helena  of,  41, 

46,74 

2L 


Ind 


ex 


Montenegro,  Roads  in,  67-8 

„  Subjects  of,  in  Constanti- 

nople, 409-1  o,  4 1 5, 426 
Mostar,  91-3,  g^,  102,  134-41 


Nacevic,  M.,  468-70 

Narenta  Canal,  109,  132-33 

Naiiplia,  254 

Niksic,  33,  55,  67.  84-5 

Nis,  475-76 

Xjegus,  55 

Xovi-Bazar,  Sandzak  of,  15,50,  121-22, 
ch.  V.  fiissim,  389  ;  (Austro-Turkish 
relations  in)  183-88,  189;  (Govern- 
ment of)  183-86  ;  (Political  import- 
ance of)  186-88 


O 


Olympia,  239-40 
Ostrog,  81-4 


Palaeokastrizza,  Monastery  of,  228-32 

Parenzo,  4 

Patras,  241 

Pcriaiiiks,  56,  65,  85 

Petrovic,  Bozo,  63-4 

Phaleron,  271-72 

Philippopolis,  43O-41 

Pinguente,  2 

Piraeus,  The,  268-71 

Pirano,  3 

Pisino,  2-7 

Plamenac,  E.,  64 

Plevlje,  178,  184-85,  189-97 

,,       Pasha  of,  188,  192-94 
Pocitelj,  134 

Podgorica,  55,  66-7,  73,  78-9 
Pola,  4,  8-13 
Poljica,  Republic  of,  26 
Pomaks,  89,  470-71 
Pribinic,  168-70 
Prinkipo,  430 

Q 

Quarnero,  The,  8,  13 


R 

Ragusa,  10,  26-36 

Rama,  129 

Rhallis,  M.,  280,  289-97,  308 

Risano,  37,  85-6 

Ristic,  M.,  472,  480 

Rjeka,  55,  77 

Robert  College,  411-17,  440 

Rogatica,  201-203 

Roumanians,  481-82,  505 

Roumelia,  Eastern,  sec  Bulgaria 

Roses,  Valley  of,  444-45 

Rudolph,  Archduke,  35,  67,  127,  155, 

162 
Russia  in  the  Near  East,  38,  55,  66,  72, 

74-5,  3^^>  504-507 


Sabioncello,  Peninsula  of,  11,  35,  132 
Salonica,  186,   196,  363-69,  372,   376, 

378.  383,  440,  469 
Samakov,  Missionaries  at,  450-54 
Samos,  353-60 

Prince  of,  355-56 
Samuel,  Bulgarian  Tsar,  62,  371,  373, 

482 
San  Stefano,  Treaty  of,  188,  374,383, 

432 
Santi  Quaranta,  69,  213-14 
Sarajevo,  90,  94,  96,  98,  101-102,  144- 

52 
Scutari  in  Albania,  51-2,  73,  208-209 
Sebenico,  16-21 

Servia,  Ex-King  Milan  of,  47,  473-74 
,,'      King  Alexander  of,  47,  473-74 
,,        Politics  of,  472-75 
,,        Propaganda  of  in  Macedonia, 

377-81 
,,       Scenery  of,  475-77 
"Seven  Castles,"  The,  22 
Shipka  Pass,  The,  445-49 
Simeon,   Bulgarian   Tsar,  62,  371-73 

440,  482 
Skanderbeg,  62,  207 
Slivnica,  472 
Smolenski,  General  C,  263,  280,  300- 

304 
Sofia,  456  (7  H]q. 
Spalato,  10,  24-6,  109 
Spizza,  51,  71 


Index 


Stagno  Grande,  131 
„        Piccolo,  132 
Stambuloff,  M.,  440,  461,  463 
Stoiloff,  Dr.  C,  414,  440,  466-67 
Streit,  M.,  298 
Suda  Bay,  328,  348 


Tattooing,  156 

Thessalian  Mussulmans,  471 

Thessalv,  Turkish  occupation  of,  274- 

Tomasevic,  Stephen,  King  of  Bosnia, 

88,  160-61 
Tommaseo,  N.,  21 
Trail,  10,  22,  23 
Travnik,  102,  154-57 
Trebinje,  34,  102 
Tricoupis,  Ch.,  260,    281,  287,  291-92, 

295,305-306,309,312,47^ 
Turkey,  Sultan  of,  404-11,  484 
Turkish   administration,  350-51,  390- 
92 
,,  baksliisli,  402-404 

„         censorship,    394,     397,   400- 

401 
,,        currency,  397-400 
,,         navy,  486 
,,         passports,  401-402 

postofhce,  359,  395-97 
press,  393-94 
,,         railways,    108,    196-97,  209, 
211-12,  363,  365,421,424 


Turkish  reforms,  483-88 
,,         roads,  107 

3,3^,  346,390 
soldiers,    194,  226,  2^^,  329, 
331,  346,  390 
„         spies,  392-93 
,,         time,  429 
,,        women,  418 
"  Turks,  Young,"  487-88 
Tvrtko  I.,  King  of  Bosnia,  34,  62 


Usora,  113, 170 
Usref,  89,  147 


U 


V 


Val  di  Noce,  71 
Valona,  212-13 
Vathy,  sec  Samos 

Venice,  Influence  of,  in   Xear   East, 
3,  10,  13-15,  20,  26,  35,  38,  334,  339 
Verne,  M.  Jules,  6. 
Visegrad,  136,  200-201 
Volo,  275-78 
Vranduk,  174-76 

Z 

Zabliak,  77 

Zaimis,  M.,  297-98,  303,  310,  317 

Zante,  219,  235-36 

Zara,  13-15 

,,     Vecchia,  15 
Zenica,  103,  no 
Zlarin,  Island  of,  16 


515 


Ube  ©rcebam  jpress 

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